The best flat roof roofing material is without a doubt an individual sheet of rubber custom made for weather-proofing flat roofs, such as Firestone’s EPDM product.

This is laid directly onto roof boarding, itself supported by the roof rafters and nagging. Insulating material is normally laid in the space between your two, and if you’re renewing your flat roof anyway you might as well take the chance of renewing that simultaneously.

This will almost certainly be the recommendation you receive from any reputable builder or roofer advising you on replacing your existing flat roof.

Lafayette Roofing Until recently the most famous material for a new flat roof was bituminous felt laid in three layers, the initial layer nailed down and the upper two bonded to the one beneath with mastic bitumen. Depending on the material used, this could mean heating a good bitumen-based compound to make it liquid, and pouring it onto the underlying felt and spreading it evenly on the whole section of the roof.

Then you had to hold back for the compound to cool before applying another layer, and at the end spreading a layer of stone chippings over the roof and bonding it with a chipping compound, this being to reflect natural sunlight preventing the felt and bitumen degrading quickly.

This was altogether a rather messy, complicated and time-consuming job best left to the professionals. In addition, there have been several stages where it had been very easy to neglect to make the roof weather-proof, e.g. where in fact the edge of the felt met the existing tile or slate roofing of the pitch roof.

In addition, if, or rather when, there developed a leak in the flat roof, it might be very difficult and messy to find out wherever the rain was getting in. Seldom would the manifestation of the leak on the ceiling of the area below be directly below the source of it. Water could get through a weakness in the bitumen felt and travel along a rafter before descending to the ceiling board below.

The brand new generation of rubber-based flat roofing systems are far superior. If you have reasonable DIY abilities then you can certainly probably do it yourself, with one other person to aid. You can easily find a local supplier of rubber flat roof roofing material online, and the existing price is only around �6.65 per square metre.

Most suppliers slice the material to the exact shape and size that you require so are there no unnecessary joins, meaning no weaknesses and an exceptionally long-lasting, leak-proof roof.

The vital area of the whole process is to make sure that there are no gaps between the rubber roof and any existing pitch roof where rain may penetrate. To ensure there are no problems it is vital to run the rubber material up and beneath the tiles or slates of the adjoining pitch roof in order that any rain dripping from the lower-most row falls onto the rubber, without chance for it over-lapping the edge and getting within the pitch roof.

Also, make sure that the existing slope of the flat roof towards the guttering or other means of water escape is maintained. The rubber is merely glued onto the roof boards and sealed where appropriate with metal brackets or bitumen so that rain penetration is impossible. Mind that the glue covers the entire underneath of the rubber to be able to avoid bumps in the top which could obstruct the drainage of the water away.

Rubber roofs have been shown to last for well over 50 years under all weathers, so that it really is the only flat roof roofing material you need to consider when deciding on a new flat roof.