Mending a flat roof can be tricky. A flat roof will ordinarily have several different layers between the “weather” surface and the ceiling below and as the water seeps down through these layers, it can change course and move in almost any direction.

With a sloping roof its normally a lot easier to judge the approximate region of the leak. Since water goes quickly down the sloped roof, the point on the ceiling at which you see the leak can often be approximated with a similar point on the roof itself. Recently we had a situation where a leak was coming from a sloped roof in our home and we were able to quickly and easily identify the breach point.

Finding the source of a flat roof leak is going to depend a lot more on the experience and intelligence of the roofer. He or she needs to be able to identify all the common causes of leaks on flat roofs. He needs to be able to immediately look towards the spots that are likely to be vulnerable - such as flashing, boundaries with parapet walls etc.

A potential culprit in flat roof leaks is depressed parts of the roof where water settles. You need to try to isolate areas of residual damp on the roof or depressed areas that sometimes show concentric rings of dirt where water has evaporated.

As discussed at flat roof repair, in general any depressed area on a flat roof is potentially vulnerable to future leaks and should be addressed sooner or rather than later.

In practice however, you are going to have to trust to the judgement of your roofing contractor. He will point out to you the areas he thinks are causing the leak. And all you can do is pay him to carry out the work and hope for a dry ceiling when the next serious rain falls. You will only know if he was right when the leak stops.

If you’d like to learn more about flat roofs in general, especially the flat roof materials available epdm flat roof is a site you should check out.

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