Flat Roof Repairs In Newcastle
Is the felt on your garage or extension roof holding a puddle for days after it rains?
Honest patch repairs, EPDM rubber overlays and full strip and re-deck jobs on garages, kitchen extensions and dormers across Newcastle upon Tyne and Tyne and Wear
Flat roofs are the part of a Newcastle house that gets forgotten until the kitchen ceiling bubbles. Torch-on felt blisters and splits, the falls were never quite right, and after fifteen years the deck underneath can be soft enough to put a boot through. We tell you plainly which of three things you need: a patch that will genuinely hold, a rubber overlay on a sound deck, or a strip back to the joists. All three come with a written price before anyone lights a torch.
- Deck probed and checked, not just the surface glanced at
- Felt, EPDM rubber and GRP fibreglass all carried out
- Garages, extensions, dormers, porches and bay tops
- Written guarantee on every flat roof we touch
Get A Free Roof Inspection
Tell us what is going on and we will ring you back to arrange a look.
Why Flat Roofs On Tyneside Pack In Early
A pitched roof shrugs rain off. A flat roof has to hold it, move it sideways and get rid of it, and every one of those steps can fail. This is what we find when we climb up.
Blisters In The Felt
Bubbles the size of a dinner plate mean moisture got trapped under the felt when it was laid, or has worked in since through a pinhole. Each one stretches the felt thinner every summer until it cracks open. On garage roofs across Longbenton and Westerhope we count them in dozens.
A Puddle That Never Drains
Standing water a couple of days after rain means the falls are wrong or the deck has sagged between the joists. Ponding is not a leak on its own, but it doubles the weight on a tired deck, grows moss and finds the weakest lap every single time it freezes.
Splits At The Upstand
Where the flat roof meets the house wall the felt has to turn up and tuck under a flashing. That corner moves with every change in temperature. The felt tears along the fold, the lead above it was often never chased in, and water runs straight down the wall into the extension.
Spongy Underfoot
Walk across the roof and it gives like a mattress. The chipboard or ply deck has been wet from below for years and has gone to cornflakes. No covering on earth fixes that from above, and anybody who offers to overlay it is selling you a roof with a hole already in it.
Outlet Choked With Moss
The single outlet on most extension roofs is a small hole and it blocks with a handful of moss. Water then backs up along the whole roof, finds the upstand and the fascia, and the first you know is a drip above the back door in a downpour.
Cracked Fibreglass Trims
GRP roofs rarely fail across the middle. They fail at the edge trims and corners, where a thin topcoat over a sharp angle crazes and lets water get behind the laminate. Hairline cracks at the drip edge are the thing to look for, usually on dormers built in the last twenty years.
How We Deal With A Flat Roof That Has Started Leaking
The expensive mistake with flat roofs is putting a new covering over a deck that is already rotten. Our routine is designed to stop that happening.
Inspect Above And Below
We look at the surface, the laps, the upstands and the outlet, then press the deck across its whole area to find any give. Inside, we check the ceiling and, where there is access, the joists from underneath. Photos of everything we find.
Honest Verdict, Three Prices If Needed
You get told which option the roof actually needs. Where a patch is a sensible holding repair we say so and price it. Where the deck is sound but the felt is done, we price a rubber overlay. Where it is rotten, we price the strip. No pretending a patch will last ten years.
Strip Where It Has To Be Stripped
Old felt and any rotten boards come off and go in the skip, and we expose the joists to check their ends where they sit on the wall. Soft timber is cut out and spliced with new. Nobody lays a new roof over a joist you can push a knife into.
Deck, Insulation And Falls
New OSB or ply deck goes on, screwed not nailed. Where the roof needs it, firring strips are set so the water runs to the outlet rather than away from it. Insulation is added in line with Building Regs where the job triggers that, and we tell you in advance when it does.
Lay The Covering
EPDM rubber is fully bonded in one sheet so there are no laps across the field of the roof. GRP is laminated wet onto the deck with proper corner reinforcement and a topcoat. Torch-on felt, where it is the right choice, is laid as a three-layer system with the laps sealed.
Trims, Flashings And Guarantee
Edge trims and drip edges are fitted so water clears the fascia, the upstand is finished with a lead or GRP flashing let into the wall, and the outlet is left clear. Water test, tidy up, and a written guarantee on the lot.
A Flat Roof Fixed Properly, Or We Tell You Why Not
Every flat roof repair, overlay or re-deck we carry out is backed by a written workmanship guarantee, and that guarantee runs for ten years, in writing, before you agree to anything. If the roof we laid lets water through, you ring us and we come back and sort it, without a debate about whether it counts.
The other half of the promise is the verdict. If you ring us about a garage roof that has one split at the upstand, we will patch the split and tell you the rest of the roof has a few years in it. If the deck is rotten, we will not take your money for an overlay that will be back on the phone to us next winter. The honest answer costs us some jobs. It also means the ones we do stay fixed.
What Separates A Decent Flat Roofer From An Expensive One
Did They Check The Deck?
A flat roof is a covering on a board on joists, and the board is what fails first. If the roofer walked the roof and pressed it with his weight, looked at the ceiling underneath and asked when the kitchen was last redecorated, he is pricing the whole roof. If he looked at the felt and said 'rubber will sort that', he is pricing the bit he can see. The second roofer is cheaper and ends up costing more.
Which Membrane, And Why?
There is no single best flat roof covering. EPDM rubber suits most extensions and garages because it goes on as one sheet with no joints. GRP is better where there are lots of upstands, rooflights and awkward shapes, because it is laminated to fit. Felt is still right on some older roofs for matching and for cost. A roofer who only offers one of the three is offering you what he has in the van.
Is Building Control Mentioned?
Replace more than half of a flat roof covering and Building Regs Part L treats the job as renovating a thermal element, which normally means bringing the insulation up to current standard at the same time, as long as it is practical to do so. A quote for a full re-cover that says nothing about insulation or notification is either unaware of the rule or hoping you are. Ask the question before you sign.
Patch, Overlay, Or Strip It Back?
The three routes we quote on flat roofs, and when each one is the honest choice on a typical Newcastle extension or garage.
| Patch repair | EPDM overlay | Strip and re-deck | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is done | Split or blister cut out, new material bonded in, upstand or trim re-sealed | Old felt cleaned and left in place, new rubber bonded over it in one sheet | Everything off to the joists, rotten timber replaced, new deck, falls, insulation and covering |
| Guide price | £150 - £400 | £700 - £1,600 on a garage or small extension | £1,500 - £2,500 and above on bigger roofs |
| Time on site | An hour or two | One day | Two to three days |
| Life you can expect | A few years on a roof that is otherwise sound | Twenty years and more, often longer | The life of the new covering, with the deck sorted underneath |
| Right choice when | One fault on a roof with life left in it | Felt is tired across the whole area but the deck is dry and firm | The deck gives underfoot, there is rot at the joist ends, or ponding is caused by sag |
| Where it goes wrong | Patching a roof that has twenty faults, one at a time | Overlaying a deck that is already soft | Being sold it when a patch would have done |
A Kitchen Roof That Needed Stripping To The Joists
The photo is a flat roof over a kitchen extension in Newcastle, mid-job. The owner had asked for a quote to overlay the felt because it looked tired. Walking across it told us the story before we lifted anything: the deck sank under every step. With the felt off, the chipboard around the rooflight and along the back wall had rotted through, two joist ends had gone black where they sat on the brickwork, and you could see the kitchen tiles through the gaps. An overlay would have looked lovely for about a year.
So we stripped it, cut out and spliced the bad joist ends, fitted a new OSB deck with firrings to put a proper fall on, and finished it in EPDM. The soil pipe and the old lead that had been dumped against the wall were sorted at the same time, because the water running down that wall was half the problem. If the leak had turned out to be the gutter above the extension overflowing rather than the roof itself, we would have fixed that and left the roof alone.
This is the pattern on most flat roof leak jobs we attend: the covering gets blamed, the deck and the details are where the real damage is. We photograph each stage so you can see the condition of what was under there and judge for yourself whether the strip was needed.
Based on jobs we get called to around Newcastle, roughly one in three flat roofs that come to us for a simple overlay turn out to have a deck too far gone to lay anything over.
Based on the enquiries and jobs handled by Huckleberry Roofing Ltd. A rough picture of what we see, not a formal survey.What Flat Roof Work Tends To Cost
A single split or blister repaired with the upstand re-sealed sits at the low end. A rubber overlay on a single garage or small extension is in the middle. Stripping to the joists, replacing deck and timber, adding insulation and laying new is the top end. All prices VAT inclusive, all in writing first.
£150 - £2,500
See The Full Cost GuideFlat Roof Questions We Hear In Newcastle
How long does an EPDM rubber roof last?
Can you lay rubber straight over my old felt?
Is it worth repairing a garage roof or should I just replace it?
What are the Building Regs rules when a flat roof is re-covered?
My 1960s house has a flat-roofed dormer that drips. Is that a flat roof job?
Do I need planning permission to repair or re-cover a flat roof in Newcastle?
Flat Roof Repairs Across Tyne And Wear
Newcastle upon Tyne is home turf, and we cover the rest of Tyne and Wear from there. Pick your area for the local page, or just ring if you are somewhere in between.
Get The Puddle Off Your Roof Before It Gets Into The Kitchen
Ring us with what you have seen, or send a photo of the roof. We will come and walk it, check the deck, and give you a written price for the option it actually needs.