Ignoramus18857 wrote:

On 2013-09-29, DanG wrote:
On 9/28/2013 8:29 PM, Ignoramus795 wrote:
I have a warehouse with a flat roof. It has two drains and is supposed
to be inclined uniformly towards the drains. However, between the two
drains, a depressed area appeared and water pools there. From there,
it leaks down into the warehouse.

I am looking for cheap workarounds to stave off roof replacement. I am
wondering how hard is it to add a roof drain and connect it to
existing drains. Will that help?

i
who hates flat roofs

You don't mention how your roof is made. We are all just guessing. I
suspect a flat deck made of exposed steel bar joists with metal deck and
3 or 5 ply roof on pearl board with gravel ballast.

A re-roof to current code will demand a minimum of 1/4 in 12 pitch.
This is usually accomplished with shaped Styrofoam. The popular
membranes now are Modified Bitumen or TPO.

Adding a roof drain is fairly easy, especially if you can travel in the
bar joists to an outside wall. I would think it would be hard to make
grade joining to another existing drain. The added roof drain does NOT
fix the roof, but it does get the weight off.

As someone else already noted, you should certainly have a roofer that
you trust and knows your roof.


What about "Foam roofing"? Where they spray foam on top of everything?
Is that a scam?

As for TPO vs bitumen, which one would you recommend for Illinois? I
am coming to a conclusion that I need to just redo the roof, instead
of half measures, and live happily thereafter.

i

I think you need to have the roof inspected by a reputable roofing
company if one exists. Just because you have a leak in one location does
not necessarily mean that the rest of the roof is at the end of its life
span, though it could be. Think of it like a vehicle, you might have a
bad rust spot where a rock chipped the paint - this doesn't mean you
need to replace the entire body of the vehicle. Similarly your roof
might have one spot that had a flaw when it was built, or it could have
been damaged when someone was working up there on A/C or something.