Haverhill Roofers carries out commercial roofing repairs and replacements for businesses in Cambridge and the surrounding villages, covering industrial units, offices, retail premises and farm buildings.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
A commercial roof rarely fails without warning. The problem is that the signs are easy to ignore until water is coming through a ceiling or saturating insulation that costs a fortune to replace. Understanding what to look for, and what is causing it, puts you in a far stronger position when it comes to deciding how urgently to act.
On flat roofs, the earliest visible sign is often blistering or bubbling in the felt surface. This happens when moisture becomes trapped beneath the membrane during installation or repairs, then expands and contracts with temperature changes. Left alone, the blisters crack, water gets in and the insulation beneath becomes wet and useless. Once insulation is saturated, you cannot simply patch the surface; the whole section usually needs stripping back and rebuilding.
Ponding water is another warning that business owners overlook. A flat roof is not designed to hold standing water for days at a time. If puddles remain 48 hours after rain, the falls are either wrong or the outlets are blocked. Prolonged ponding accelerates the breakdown of any membrane and puts weight on a structure that was not engineered for it.
Profiled metal sheet roofs on industrial units and agricultural buildings show their problems differently. Rust streaks running down the cladding are the obvious one, but by the time rust is visible externally, the fixings holding the sheets down are often already corroding from inside. Corroded fixings allow sheets to lift in wind, which opens gaps and lets water in along the laps between sheets.
Sealant failure at the laps is a common source of leaks that is easy to misdiagnose. Water can enter at a lap three or four bays away from where it appears inside the building, because it tracks along the profile ribs before finding a way through. A repair that targets only the drip point will fail quickly. The whole affected run of laps needs inspecting and resealing.
On rooflights, yellowing or crazing of the polycarbonate or acrylic panel is a sign that UV degradation has made the material brittle. Brittle panels crack under foot traffic, debris impact or simply thermal movement, and the surrounding kerb flashings are usually compromised at the same time. Replacing just the panel without checking the kerb and upstand is a job half done.
Box gutters run inside the parapet of many flat-roofed commercial buildings, and they are responsible for more internal leaks than the roof membrane itself. The problem is that they rely on outlets staying clear and on the lead or felt lining staying watertight at every joint and corner. Any organic debris - moss, leaves, even wind-blown soil - builds up at outlets and causes the gutter to back up. Water then overtops the upstand and gets behind the internal lining.
Thermal movement in long box gutters is also a cause of joint failure. Lead expands and contracts significantly between winter and summer, and if it has been laid in lengths that are too long without proper movement joints, it cracks at the folds. This is a workmanship issue from the original installation rather than natural wear, but it is common on buildings put up quickly during periods of rapid commercial development.
If you can see tide marks or staining on the inside of a parapet wall, or on the ceiling directly below the gutter line, the box gutter is the first place to investigate, not the membrane.
Some roof deterioration has nothing to do with weather or age. Unauthorised rooftop access for HVAC maintenance, satellite dish installation or cleaning work is a frequent cause of punctures in flat roof membranes and cracked rooflights. A single boot through a weathered membrane costs far more to repair than it would have cost to lay a proper access walkway in the first place.
Overloaded or badly designed rainwater systems cause backup that forces water under flashings and through parapet copings. If your gutters and downpipes were sized for the original building footprint and the roof area has been extended since, the drainage calculation will be wrong. This is worth checking on any building that has had extensions or additional units added.
Penetrations through the roof for pipework, cables and ventilation units are reliable weak points. Each penetration needs a properly formed upstand and a weathered collar or flashing. When service contractors run new cables or pipes through a roof without involving a roofer, they typically seal the entry with mastic alone. Mastic cracks within a few years, and the penetration becomes a water entry point.
We work on commercial properties in and around Cambridge and cover nearby villages and towns including Haverhill, Clare, Sawston, Fulbourn, Castle Camps, Linton and the surrounding area.
Settlements close to Haverhill such as Withersfield, Sturmer, Kedington, Steeple Bumpstead and Ridgewell all have commercial and farm buildings that we cover. If your premises fall between towns, it is worth asking any contractor early how access, materials and skips will be handled on a rural site.
Before any repair or replacement goes ahead, a thorough survey should cover the membrane or sheet material, all flashings, box gutters, outlets and downpipes, any rooflights, penetrations and the upstands around anything that comes through the roof. It should also check the roof deck or substrate, because replacing a membrane on a rotten or delaminated deck is money wasted.
Ask any contractor you are considering whether their survey includes the drainage system and the substrate condition, not just the visible surface. If the answer is no, or vague, that is a reason to look elsewhere.
Commercial roofing work does not have to mean closing your premises. Most repairs and many replacements can be phased so that different sections of the building remain in use. Noisy or disruptive work can often be scheduled for early mornings, evenings or weekends where that matters to your operation.
If you have noticed any of the warning signs described here and want a proper look at your roof, call us to arrange a site visit and a clear explanation of what needs doing and why.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
