Off my master bedroom I have a flat roofed deck over our living room. It leaked around the bannister posts. I removed the bannister and hired a fix-it guy to repair the roofing material. He used a rubber strip – not a composite material, but rubber. He didn’t finish the job and left the outer edge long to be flashed etc. I’ve now had it flashed with a metal strip under the rubber. The flashing is the same material used to on the metal roof of the rest of the house. It’s steel/? combination material.
Questions:
1] How do I stick down the rubber on to the plywood decking and metal flashing?
2] How do I install a new bannister that won’t leak? Can supports be attached to the sides of the house instead of on top of the deck and through the rubber? In Australia I saw what looked like plexiglas that was used as a barrier around a bedroom deck. I liked this because from our bed we look over the deck down the garden and it would be great to have an unblocked view. Can anyone give me information about this material and how to attach it?
3] The base of the French doors leading on to the deck are about 1″ above the level of the deck. Obviously installed incorrectly. Snow blows against the door, melts and in the past has leaked in to the living room. If the caulking is good it doesn’t seem to leak anymore, but obviously this is going to be an ongoing problem. Any suggestions about how to prevent further leaks?
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MHD,
You are in over your head. Hire a professional roofer. Find someone that will give you references for flat roof work. After checking references listen to what he says.
As far as the door goes ditto the above but substitute carpenter for roofer. DanT
You definitely need a pro here. You are already going down the wrong raod with handyman temporary patching on this. I'll try to explain part of the why.
The proper way to do any flashing on a flat roof is to lay down the membrane first, then nail the metal edging over it, sometimes seating it in a caulk or adhesive product, then apply another strip of the membrane material over the metal. It sounds from your description like you have the metal edge up under the roof membrane directly on the plywood.
Rubber roof is a sort of nickname that has come to be used for at least three different kinds of roof me3mbrane. Each of them have different methods for sticking it down so the answer to the specific Q you ask will depend on a more thorough desription from you of what you started with, what the handymman used, and how long you want it to last.
Knowing your climate would help too, but you obviously have design issues in addition to all the above because a flat roof should curb up a good four inches to the sill. Relying on caulk in place of good design and installation with pan is a recipe for failure.
there are a couple of ways to add railing posts ( BTW, this is a railing you have - a bannister runs down a staircase) to flat roofs, but you need to have a roof first.
Now - when you look for a company to take care of this, you need to aaskl a lot of questions about what they would do, how they would do it, and what experience they have in similar situations. This is not an easy situation to deal with and includes both high quality roofing, and carpentry to get it right - no hacks allowed.
Photos would help us comment further in educating you but you really need an experioenced professional on this job.
or
buy stock in the caulking comapnies, guys.
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hi
i am new here but have been buying the mag since it first came out i cant type my english & grammar suck but i am a descent finish carpenter lol. anyway i agree with you about the profesonial roofer !! oh well all that being said i have done what he is talking about on a flat roof with posts i used a product that they called dibaden i believe i used it around the posts & i cut a slight regalit in the post up about 3 1/2 inches on a 45 degree angle & tucked the material in the grove then i bought the right torch for the material & heated it which vulcanizes it , it never leaked but boy can that torch throw a flame !!!!
Dibuten is a modified torch-down single poly product. That method can work nine times out of ten when carefully done, but I've never seen a pro roofer do it and gaurantee it. It's a matter of playing the odds that way.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
"Flat roof problems" is an oxymoron. There are clues in physics, like "water runs downhill."