A waterproofing transformation

After a wonderful Cornish summer our thoughts turn towards autumn and winter gales and the effect which these might have on flat roofs which are a little past their pristine best. It’s a time of year when we regularly tweet out warnings about the importance of checking your flat roof for damage before the autumn sets in as we know only too well the impact which a blast of heavy rain coming straight in off the Atlantic can do to worn roof coverings.

When your flat roof starts to wear you may not notice the effects over the summer when the odd shower quickly dries up any embedded moisture. But once blustery wind swirls heavy rain across the surface it soon finds any damaged areas leading to damp patches at best, damaged infrastructure at worst.

It’s always satisfying therefore to be asked to renew or repair a flat roof as we know that timely work can prevent lasting damage. Our latest reroofing project was a little out of the ordinary however, working on a 2800m² roof at Old Vicarage Place in St Austell.

In its previous existence the roof doubled as a car park over a shopping centre. The car park had been decommissioned, leaving a fair amount of its infrastructure in place. Our task therefore was to carry out some cleaning up work before overlaying the roof with a waterproof covering. The preparation work included the removal of lampposts, clearing away debris, undertaking a CCTV survey of drainage prior to cleaning it and bleach/washing the existing covering.

For the waterproofing work a two layer built up felt Danosa system was chosen. As flexible as it is durable, built up felt roofing can be used in both domestic and commercial roofing applications. The Danosa system meets current building regulations and it has the advantage of being cost-effective and relatively quick to install; something which is particularly appropriate when re-covering large areas.

With the current St Austell project involving the renewal of the roof over a number of retail outlets, it was important to keep any exposure time to a minimum. The Danosa system not only enabled us to deliver in accordance with project specifications, it also was an ideal choice for waterproofing and securing a large area of roof from any of the effects of the Cornish weather.