Cypress, CA
Flat roofs do not shed water. They hold it back.
Almost every flat roof problem is a drainage problem wearing a disguise. Standing water finds the one seam that was not welded properly.
Describe the flat roofing job
Three questions, then the address. Up to three Cypress contractors who do this work.
You are on the list.
No provider in Cypress is taking requests through this service yet. We are lining them up, and yours is kept until one can.
- Nobody gets your details yet. Your request stays with us and is not passed to any company.
- One email when someone can help. When a provider covering your area can take it on, we email you once and ask whether you want that company, by name, to contact you.
- Deleted after 90 days. If nobody can take it on, or you do not say yes, your contact details are deleted 90 days after your request.
- You decide, or you do not. There is nothing to cancel and nothing to pay us.
Nobody will call you about this request unless you say yes to a company by name.
Before you let anybody on the roof
The things worth pinning down on a flat roofing job. A contractor who has not raised them has not looked properly.
- Which membrane, and how the seams are joined
- Drain, scupper and overflow provision
- How the flat section is flashed into adjoining walls and pitched roofs
- Whether a coating is being sold as a repair
- Whether water ponds anywhere after rain
Single-ply membranes — TPO, PVC, EPDM — are heat-welded or taped at the seams. The seams and the terminations are the whole job.
Coatings can buy a sound roof several years. Coating a failed roof buys you a wet roof with a fresh top coat on it.
Look at the flashing where the flat section meets a wall. That transition leaks far more often than the field of the membrane does.
Locally
Close behind that: sudden dry winds that test every lifted edge on the roof. These winds are not constant, which is the problem. A roof gets nine quiet months and then one night at fifty miles an hour, and whatever was marginal goes.
About flat roofing here
Why does ventilation keep coming up?
Because a badly ventilated attic cooks the roof from underneath and takes years off it. Intake at the eaves and exhaust at the ridge, in balance. It is cheap during a re-roof and awkward afterwards.
What warranty should I expect?
Two separate things. The manufacturer covers the material for its rated life, but only if it was installed to their specification. The contractor covers workmanship, commonly five to ten years, and only for as long as they are trading.
Can I just put a new roof over the old one?
Codes in most places allow two layers. That does not make it wise. You lose the chance to see the deck, and the next roofer has twice as much to remove.
Is this really free?
Yes. You pay nothing, now or later. Roofing contractors pay us for the introduction, which is why the service costs you nothing and why we are upfront that it is how we make money.