Westminster, CA
Flat roofs do not shed water. They hold it back.
Almost every flat roof problem is a drainage problem wearing a disguise. Standing water finds the one seam that was not welded properly.
Describe the flat roofing job
Three questions, then the address. Up to three Westminster contractors who do this work.
You are on the list.
No provider in Westminster 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.
- Drain, scupper and overflow provision
- Whether water ponds anywhere after rain
- Which membrane, and how the seams are joined
- How the flat section is flashed into adjoining walls and pitched roofs
- Whether a coating is being sold as a repair
Look at the flashing where the flat section meets a wall. That transition leaks far more often than the field of the membrane does.
Coatings can buy a sound roof several years. Coating a failed roof buys you a wet roof with a fresh top coat on it.
Modified bitumen is the rolled, torched or self-adhered system you see on older flat additions. Cheaper, and shorter-lived.
Locally
Behind it: the autumn offshore winds, which find anything already loose. They also drive ember risk, which is why vent screening and Class A assemblies matter more here than the colour of the covering.
About flat roofing here
Are you a roofing company?
No, and it matters that we say so. We are a referral service, not a contractor. The roofing work, the licence, the insurance and the warranty all sit with the independent company you choose.
Can I just put a new roof over the old one?
Codes in most places allow two layers. That does not make it wise. You lose the chance to see the deck, and the next roofer has twice as much to remove.
Are gutters included in a re-roof?
Normally a separate line. It is the one add-on that genuinely costs less when done at the same time.
Does being near the ocean change what goes on the roof?
Considerably. Salt air corrodes anything ferrous, so fasteners, valley metal, vent collars, flashing and gutter hangers should be specified for coastal exposure — stainless or heavy-gauge coated, not plain galvanised. The covering usually outlives the metal holding it down.
Get the roof looked at
Free, no obligation, and your details go to no company until you say yes.