Fakenham Roofers handles commercial roofing work for businesses, farms, schools and landlords in and around Swaffham, covering flat felt, single-ply membrane and profiled metal sheet systems.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
A commercial roof failure rarely happens at a convenient moment. Water coming through a warehouse ceiling on a Tuesday morning, or a section of metal sheeting lifting ahead of forecast wind, puts pressure on you to act immediately. That urgency is understandable - but some of the things people do in those first hours can make the problem worse and increase the final cost of repair.
This page covers what commercial roofing work involves, what the common failure points are, and what you should and should not do in the period between discovering a problem and having a roofer on site.
Commercial roofing spans a wider range of buildings and systems than domestic work.
Each system fails differently. A felt roof blisters, cracks or lifts at its flashings. A single-ply membrane is most likely to fail at its perimeter edge or around penetrations. Metal sheet roofing tends to fail first at its fasteners, ridge caps or the overlaps between sheets. Knowing roughly which system your building has helps you describe the problem accurately when you call for help.
Before you think about the roof itself, the priority is protecting the contents of the building. Move stock, equipment or vehicles away from the area below the leak. Place containers to catch dripping water and reduce slip risks for anyone still working in the space.
If the water is coming through a ceiling, resist the urge to ignore a bulging or sagging patch. A ceiling panel or ceiling board holding a volume of water can drop without warning. If you can see a bulge, keep everyone away from the area beneath it and do not poke, prod or pierce it.
Document the damage with photographs as soon as it is safe to do so. Date-stamped photos of where water is entering and what has been affected are useful both for any insurance claim and to help the roofer understand the pattern of failure before they get on the roof.
Some temporary measures are safe to take yourself; others are not. From ground level, you can:
The most important thing to understand about a commercial roof is that it is not the same as a domestic pitched roof. It is often accessed only by ladder or scaffolding, and the surface - flat membrane, metal sheeting, or multi-layer felt - does not behave the way a tile roof does underfoot.
Do not attempt to get onto the roof yourself to investigate or apply a temporary fix. Even if you are physically capable of getting up there, walking on a failing flat roof can break through softened decking, puncture a damaged membrane further, or cause injury on an unstable surface. None of these outcomes saves money.
Temporary repair products - tape, sealant, expanding foam, roof paint - should not be applied to a commercial roof system without understanding what is underneath. Bitumen-compatible sealant applied over a single-ply EPDM membrane will not bond properly and can actually complicate the permanent repair by contaminating the surface. The wrong product in the wrong place turns a straightforward patch into a more involved job.
Avoid using sheeting materials - tarpaulins, polythene - draped over a flat or low-pitch roof unless a roofer specifically advises it. On a pitched roof a tarpaulin can bridge the damaged area; on a flat roof it can trap water, channel it sideways, or act as a sail in wind, causing further damage.
When you call a commercial roofer, the more information you can give them, the more useful their initial response will be. Try to have the following ready:
This information lets a roofer assess urgency, plan the visit properly, and give you a more realistic timeframe for getting the work done.
A roofer attending a commercial roof problem should carry out a proper inspection before quoting for any repair. On a flat roof, this means checking the surface condition across the whole area, not just at the obvious entry point, because water travels under flat roof membranes and felt layers before it finds a way through.
You should expect the roofer to tell you whether the problem is localised and repairable, or whether the roof has reached a point where repair is not cost-effective. Both answers are valid - the important thing is that the assessment is based on what they actually find, not on a surface-level glance.
A written assessment or quotation should follow the inspection, specifying what work is proposed, what materials will be used, and what the scope of the job includes. Without a written scope, comparing quotes or verifying the job afterwards is very difficult.
Minor repairs to flashings and isolated felt or membrane failures typically cost from a few hundred pounds up to around £1,500, depending on the extent of the damage and the access required. Full commercial flat roof replacement is generally priced in the region of £70-£130 per square metre for felt or single-ply systems, including removal of the old covering. Profiled metal sheet work varies considerably with building size, profile type, and the condition of the structure and fixings beneath.
These are general guides - your building's specific layout, system age, and access conditions will all affect the final figure.
If you have a commercial roof problem in or near Swaffham and you need a proper survey and written assessment, call Fakenham Roofers. We cover commercial buildings of all types across the area and can advise on the right system, the right repair, and what the work will realistically involve.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
