Flat roof repairs

I got a call yesterday to look at a 70 square rubber roof,....with several leaks. I looked at the deck from below beccause they said that they had water ponding on the roof. Sure enough, you could see where the water was coming in, and you could also see where the rib on the decking had been, BEFORE it had completely rusted away. For Gods sake, how long has this thing been leaking. I went on the roof, and getting to the top of the ladder, they had just rolled the rubber over the edge and kind of sealed it to the gutter with no drip edge, except where they had cut it out to attach the straps to the gutter!, which were on about 4 or 5 foot centers. We got on the roof and then we saw the empty buckets of asphalt roof coating and the old brushes that they had applied it with. Yeah, on a EPDM roof.

It was an adhered system, at least in the middle. On the outside edges at the parapets it was loose and flapping in the wind, as well as the same thing around the roof top units. Two of them were newer, so they had just had a crane in to reset the units without fixing the roof. I walked over to where the leakage was occuring and when the roof started to sink down before I was 5 feet from it I backed away. It was 25 feet down to the floor, through the drop ceiling grid. Sheesh!

The guy wanted to know what we could do to "patch it" Hell, that is just polishing turds, and this is a big stinky one. It turns out the owner had stiffed another roofing company that had tried to do some patching a few years ago. Lord know who did the current roofing job, but it must have been "WE Be Roofers, or Ruufers -R- Us. What a scarry joke.

I will surely not be doing anything with it, and I am sure the guys the owner screwed before won't do anything either. It will be interesting to see how the guy tries to fix it. With the ecomony being what it is, I am sure someone will think that b=getting 40 K to do a simple roof would certainly be a money maker. It will take at least 70K to do it right and I don't know how much deck will have to be replaced. Bad all the way around.

Chicnken! :laugh: I've always wondered if those ceiling tiles would cushion the fall. You sure you don't want to give them a test run? :laugh:

I had one similar that I was doing T&M repairs with eternabond. I had told the owner it was very temporary and there were structural problems too. He'd come up and we'd gab about all that needed doing. He finally decided I was wasting time and what we could do. Patches everywhere! So right where we stood, I pointed out about 10 holes and said I could patch "that one, or that one, or that one, et.al." When he insisted it could be fixed, I laid down laughing too hard to stand up! Got fired too! But he paid me to that point and was very, very mad that I had laughed at him.

Heck, my contract said I'd work till the money ran out. :P