Flat roofs that stop leaking and stay stopped

The felt has had its day

Most flat roofs in Cheshire are still felt, and most of them are past it.

Felt is laid in strips, lapped over each other and bonded with a torch. Every lap is a joint, and every joint is somewhere water can eventually get in. The sun bakes it, the frost cracks it, and within ten to fifteen years it bubbles, splits along the seams and starts letting water through the deck.

You know the signs. A patch of damp on the garage ceiling. A stain spreading across the bedroom plaster under the dormer. Water sitting in a puddle days after the rain stopped. Once felt starts going, patching it buys you a season, not a fix.

We replace flat roofs. We don’t re-felt them, because we got tired of going back.

What we fit, and when

There’s no single right answer. The covering depends on the roof — its shape, its size, what’s on it, and how you use it. We work out which at the survey and tell you why. Three systems cover almost everything we do.

EPDM rubber — Firestone-trained

EPDM is a rubber membrane that goes down as one sheet. On most garages and extensions there are no seams at all across the open part of the roof — it’s a single continuous skin, bonded to the deck, dressed up the walls and trimmed off clean.

• One sheet, no field joints to crack or peel
• Stays flexible in frost and in summer heat — it doesn’t go brittle
• Manufacturer life of fifty years on the membrane
• Handles building movement without splitting

We’re Firestone-trained — we’ve taken the manufacturer’s training on their EPDM system and we fit it to their detail. To be clear: we are not a “Firestone Approved Installer.” That’s a separate scheme and we won’t claim a badge we don’t hold. What you get is the right rubber, fitted to spec, backed by our workmanship guarantee.

For most garages and single-storey extensions, EPDM is what we reach for first.

Fibreglass (GRP) — the walk-on finish

Fibreglass — GRP — is laid wet and cures into one hard, seamless shell bonded straight to the deck. It’s tough underfoot, so it’s the one to fit where the roof is also a surface.

• Hard, walk-on finish — right for balconies and roof terraces
• Seamless across the whole roof, including the upstands
• Crisp trims and edges — it suits a dormer or a visible roof you look at
• Coloured topcoat that holds up to UV

We use GRP on dormers, balconies, bay roofs and any flat roof you’ll stand on or see from a window above. It’s a harder finish than rubber and it sets the edges sharp.

Lava 20 — for the awkward ones

Lava 20 is a liquid-applied system. It goes on wet and cures into one continuous skin that bonds to the deck and runs up and over every detail — pipes, upstands, parapets, awkward corners — with no joins anywhere.

That’s exactly why we use it on the difficult roofs. When a flat roof has a lot going on — vents poking through, several upstands, an odd L-shape — a sheet system means cutting and lapping around every obstacle, and every cut is a weak point. Liquid doesn’t care about the shape. It seals around everything as one piece.

We’ve completed 15+ Lava 20 roofs. To be straight with you: that’s experience, not an accreditation. We are not “Lava 20 approved” and we don’t say we are. What we have is fifteen-plus of these roofs fitted and standing, and we’ll show you photos of the kind of detail it handles.

Why rubber beats felt — plainly

It comes down to joints and flexibility.

Felt: laid in lapped strips, torched on, every seam a future leak. Goes brittle and cracks under UV. Ten to fifteen years and you’re patching it.

Rubber (EPDM): one sheet, no field seams, stays flexible cold or hot, fifty-year membrane life. Nothing to lap, nothing to peel.

The price gap between a felt roof and a rubber one is real, but small against how long each lasts and how many call-backs you avoid. We don’t fit felt anymore. If you want a flat roof you stop thinking about, rubber or one of the liquid systems is the honest answer.

Garages, dormers and extensions

Most of our flat roofs sit in one of three places, and each has its own catch.

Garages. The most common job. Usually a tired felt roof that’s been leaking onto the car or the boxes for a couple of winters. We strip the felt, check the deck and the falls, and re-cover in EPDM. One or two days, start to finish.

Dormers. A leaking dormer shows up as a stain on the bedroom ceiling. The trouble is almost always the upstands — where the flat top meets the tiled cheeks and the wall. We dress the covering up the upstands properly and tie it into the surrounding roof so water has nowhere to track in. GRP or EPDM, depending on the dormer.

Extensions. Single-storey flat-roof extensions need the falls right or water ponds in the middle and finds the weak spot. We check the deck takes the load and the fall actually drains, then re-cover seamless. Get the drainage right first and the covering lasts; skip it and you’re back to a damp ceiling.

We photograph every one of these before we start and after we finish, so you can see the upstands, the drainage and the laps — the bits you can’t see from the ground.

The deck and the falls come first

A new covering over a bad deck just leaks again, slower.

Before we lay anything we check what’s underneath. Is the deck sound, or has it gone soft where water’s been sitting? Do the falls actually run water to the outlet, or does it pond in the middle? If the deck’s rotten or the falls are wrong, we sort that first. We’ll tell you at the survey what the deck needs, with a price, before you commit.

Ponding water is the tell. A flat roof needs a slight fall so rain runs off. When water sits there days after the rain stops, the falls were laid wrong or the deck has sagged — and standing water finds every weakness. We fix the cause, not just the surface.

Why us, and why we’re not the cheapest

We’re a third-generation Cheshire roofing family. The team is in-house and fully insured — no subbies turning up you’ve never met. We carry a certified lead welder (Master Roofers Academy) for the lead detail where a flat roof meets a wall or a chimney, and we run drone surveys so we see the whole roof before we quote.

We’re the most-reviewed roofer in Middlewich, and every one of those reviews is five stars.

We’re not the cheapest, and we don’t try to be. The homeowners who call us aren’t looking for the cheapest — they’re looking for a flat roof that’s done once, done right, with no surprises halfway through and no call-back next winter. We give a fixed price after the survey, we tell you the day count up front, and we don’t find “extras” once the felt’s off. If the deck needs work, you’ll have known before we started.

Every job ends with before-and-after photos and a guarantee on our workmanship.

Next step

Book a flat roof survey. We’ll come out, get up on the roof or fly the drone over it, check the deck and the falls, and tell you straight which covering suits — EPDM, fibreglass or Lava 20 — and what it costs. No pressure, no felt.

Call 01606 537305 any time — the phone is answered 24/7 — or email middlewichroofing@gmail.com. We cover Cheshire and South Manchester.