Norwalk, CA
Flat roof work in Norwalk, CA
Flat sections on an otherwise pitched house are where the leaks are. Additions, porch roofs, and the bit over the garage.
Describe the flat roofing job
Three questions, then the address. Up to three Norwalk contractors who do this work.
You are on the list.
No provider in Norwalk is taking requests through this service yet. We are lining them up, and yours is kept until one can.
- Nobody gets your details yet. Your request stays with us and is not passed to any company.
- One email when someone can help. When a provider covering your area can take it on, we email you once and ask whether you want that company, by name, to contact you.
- Deleted after 90 days. If nobody can take it on, or you do not say yes, your contact details are deleted 90 days after your request.
- You decide, or you do not. There is nothing to cancel and nothing to pay us.
Nobody will call you about this request unless you say yes to a company by name.
Before you let anybody on the roof
The things worth pinning down on a flat roofing job. A contractor who has not raised them has not looked properly.
- Whether water ponds anywhere after rain
- Drain, scupper and overflow provision
- Which membrane, and how the seams are joined
- Whether a coating is being sold as a repair
- How the flat section is flashed into adjoining walls and pitched roofs
Coatings can buy a sound roof several years. Coating a failed roof buys you a wet roof with a fresh top coat on it.
Ponding water is the enemy. Anything still sitting there forty-eight hours after rain is a design problem, and tapered insulation is usually the answer.
Single-ply membranes — TPO, PVC, EPDM — are heat-welded or taped at the seams. The seams and the terminations are the whole job.
Locally
Then, less dramatically: morning fog that sits on the roof until mid-morning. Nothing dramatic happens. A slope stays damp most mornings for thirty years, and eventually that is enough.
About flat roofing here
I have solar panels. What happens to them?
They come off and go back on, and that is a separate cost, often handled by the solar installer rather than the roofer. If the roof is near the end of its life, do the roof first — removing and refitting panels twice is money wasted.
It is leaking right now. What do I do?
Move what you can out of the way, put a bucket under it, and if there is a bulge in the ceiling put a small hole at its lowest point to let the water out in one place rather than bringing the whole panel down. Then mark your request as an emergency — those go out first.
Why three quotes and not one?
One quote is a number with no context. Three gives you a range, and the conversation about why they differ is where you learn what you are actually buying.
What if the decking is rotten underneath?
Some of it usually is. The important thing is that the price per sheet is agreed in writing before the tear-off, so the conversation on day two is about quantity rather than rate.
What is it going to cost?
Free, no obligation, and your details go to no company until you say yes.