Flat roofs & EPDM in Blackpool

Blackpool has more flat roof than it looks like it has

From the street this reads as a town of pitched slate. A lot of it is not. Two things put flat roofs above Blackpool buildings in quantity: the commercial and leisure property along the Promenade, where flat roofs sit behind parapets and are invisible from the ground, and the boarding-house stock, where a large proportion of properties had their pitched slate roof removed and a flat-roofed extra storey built in its place as the holiday trade declined. Blackpool Council calls the second one a roof lift, and describes it as the most widespread modern structural change to the town’s historic streetscape.

The consequence is that on a great many local buildings the flat roof is not a small area over a back extension. It is the building’s primary weathering surface, ten to fourteen metres up, fully exposed on the Fylde coast. It deserves to be specified as the main roof, because that is what it is.

What we lay, and when

Which one suits your roof depends on its size, shape, how many pipes and outlets come through it, whether anyone needs to walk on it, and how it meets the walls around it. We will tell you what we would use and why rather than fitting the same system to everything.

The things that actually make flat roofs fail here

• Falls and outlets. Water standing on a flat roof is a design problem, not a maintenance one. When we re-cover, we correct the falls rather than laying a new membrane over the old shape and hoping.
• Abutments and upstands. On a roof-lift building the flat area often meets surviving slate on the outshut, or a parapet, or a neighbour’s wall. Most of the leaks we get called to on these buildings are at that junction, not out in the middle.
• Parapet and box gutters. Behind a Promenade parapet there is nowhere for a blocked outlet to discharge except inside the building. These need proper lead or membrane detailing and they need clearing.
• Wind uplift at the perimeter. The edge detail is where an exposed flat roof gets attacked first. Fylde’s own dune management plan records wind-blown sand from the St Anne’s dunes reaching pavements, the highway and inland properties — the same wind that carries sand gets under a poorly fixed edge trim.
• Drainage backing up. The Fylde coast strategic flood risk assessment describes hydraulic locking across this area, where watercourses cannot discharge over the high-tide period. Ground-level drainage that backs up is not the roof’s fault, but it changes where roof water can safely go.

Re-covering versus patching

A single split in an otherwise sound membrane is worth patching, and we will patch it. What is usually not worth it is patching a covering that has gone brittle across the whole area, or adding another layer on top of two that have already failed, which adds weight and buries the real problem. If we think you are about to spend money that will not last, we will say so and give you the price for doing it once.

You will notice we have not put a lifespan on any of these systems. Manufacturers publish their own warranties and we will hand you the paperwork for whatever we fit, but there is no honest general figure for how long a flat roof lasts on this coast, so we are not going to invent one.

Permission and regulations

Blackpool and Wyre building control both require building regulations approval for replacing a roof covering unless it is exactly a like-for-like repair. If your flat roof is on a listed building or in one of Blackpool’s seven conservation areas, replacing the covering also needs planning permission. In the Raikes Hall area the Article 4 direction in force since 1 June 2020 removes permitted development rights for roof alterations, rooflights and changes of roofing material.

If your flat roof is a roof lift on a building you are converting into flats, there is a further point worth knowing early: Blackpool’s New Homes from Old Places guidance requires non-original roof lifts to be removed and the original roofline reinstated on conversion. We cover that on our roof lifts page.

Your guarantee

Flat roofing we complete is covered by our 20 year full written company guarantee on all workmanship and all materials, issued as a written document when the job is signed off.