Commercial Flat Roofing · Weston-super-Mare & North Somerset
Commercial Flat Roofing In Weston-super-Mare
Need a roof sorting without shutting the business to do it?
Single ply, built-up and liquid systems on units, shops and offices across North Somerset
Commercial flat roofing is a different job to domestic work, and not mainly because the roofs are bigger. It is because there is a business underneath, and everything about how the work runs has to bend around that. Stock that cannot get wet. A shop floor that cannot close on a Saturday. A fire exit that has to stay a fire exit for the entire duration. A landlord and a tenant who each think the other one is paying. We do a lot of this - the units around the industrial estates, the shop parades in the town centre, workshops, offices and the light industrial stock down at Highbridge and Bridgwater - and most of the skill is in the planning rather than the roofing. The roofing itself is a solved problem. Getting it done over three weekends without a single lost trading hour is the part people actually want.
Free Commercial Flat Roofing Quote
Four boxes and one of us will come and stand on it. Surveys are free, we do not do the three-hour kitchen-table sales pitch, and if your roof has another eight years in it we would rather tell you that than sell you one you do not need.
1,000+
Flat roofs laid, patched or rescued
Houses & Units
Domestic and commercial, same crew
Written Down
Guarantee on paper before we start
Nothing
What it costs to get us on your roof
Why Use Us For Commercial Flat Roofing In Weston-super-Mare?
Work when you are shut
Evenings, weekends, shutdown periods, whatever your week actually looks like. It is easier for everybody to plan around your trading than to argue about it once the tools are on site.
Phased so you stay open
Large roofs get broken into sections, each made watertight before the next opens up. Nothing is ever left exposed overnight, which on a building full of stock is the entire point.
Single ply where the area justifies it
On bigger roofs, mechanically fixed or adhered single ply is quick to install, light on the structure, and detailed around plant, ducts and roof lights without difficulty.
Liquid systems where stripping is not an option
Sometimes a roof cannot come off - listed plant on top, a live process below, no realistic access. A cold-applied liquid system over a prepared existing surface can be the right answer, and we will say when it is and when it is a bodge.
Reports your insurer will accept
Photographs, a written account of what failed and why, and a specification for the repair. Enough detail that a claim or a service charge dispute does not come back with questions attached.
Landlord and tenant kept straight
We are used to the situation where nobody is quite sure whose roof it is. We will quote it in a form both parties can read, and we are happy to talk to a managing agent directly.
"On commercial enquiries around Weston, the roof is rarely the first thing that comes up. It is usually stock, access or trading hours, and the jobs that go badly are almost always the ones where nobody asked about those before quoting."
Based on the commercial flat roofing jobs handled by RPS Flat Roofing
How A Commercial Flat Roofing Job Runs
Tell Us What It Is Doing
Where the mark is, when it started, and whether it gets worse in wind or only in long rain. Those two behave differently and it narrows things down before anybody fetches a ladder.
Somebody Stands On It
One of us comes out, gets up there, and walks the whole roof rather than the corner you pointed at. Free, and with no expectation it turns into work.
A Look Underneath As Well
Where there is a ceiling void or a loft hatch, we look at the deck from below too. Half of what matters on a flat roof is invisible from the top.
The Diagnosis, Then The Price
You get told what has failed and why, in words you could repeat to somebody else, before any number is mentioned. Photos where they make it clearer.
A Quote You Can Take Apart
Deck, insulation, membrane, trims and access all listed separately. If you only want part of it done, you can see exactly what that part costs.
Strip Back To Sound Timber
The old covering comes off and the deck gets checked properly. Anything soft comes out. Laying a new membrane over damp boards is how a ten year roof becomes a three year roof.
Falls Before Finish
If the water has nowhere to go, it is going to sit there whatever we cover it with. Firrings or tapered insulation put a proper slope back before the membrane goes anywhere near it.
Water On It Before We Leave
Outlets tested, edges and upstands checked, everything swept up, photographs sent over and the written guarantee handed to you on the day.
What Our Guarantee Actually Covers
Every flat roof in Weston is guaranteed by somebody. Read the small print and you usually find the promise is from the company that made the rubber, not the company that stuck it down. That distinction matters, because membranes almost never fail. Installations do. A sheet of EPDM will happily outlive all of us sitting in a warehouse. It fails at the upstand where somebody rushed the corner.
So RPS Flat Roofing splits the two and tells you both. The materials carry whatever the manufacturer offers, which depends on the product going on your roof - and you are told which product that is, by name, before you agree to anything. Separately, the workmanship carries our own written guarantee, handed over on the day, in language you could read out to a neighbour.
The reason we are relaxed about putting that in writing is that most of the flat roof failures we get called to were decided before the covering went on. Water was never given anywhere to go, or the old deck was left in place because lifting it would have shown up something awkward. Get the falls and the deck right and the covering is the easy part. Get them wrong and no warranty document in the world keeps your ceiling dry.
In Writing
Our Workmanship
Named Product
Maker's Own Cover
Covered
Public Liability
1,000+
Flat Roofs Done
What To Look For In A Commercial Flat Roofing Firm
Ask how they will phase it
Any competent commercial roofer should be able to describe, before they quote, how your roof gets broken into sections and how each one is made watertight at the end of a shift. If the plan is essentially to start at one end and hope for a dry fortnight, your stock is the thing underwriting that optimism.
Ask what the access arrangements are
Working at height over an occupied building brings edge protection, exclusion zones and often a scaffold or a mast climber. That is a genuine cost and a genuine planning exercise. A quote that is silent on access has either not thought about it or intends to raise it after you have committed.
Ask about insurance limits, specifically
Domestic public liability figures are not appropriate for work over a building containing someone else's stock and staff. Ask for the actual limit, ask whether it covers hot works if a torch is involved, and ask to see the certificate rather than a reassuring sentence in an email.
Single Ply Against Built-Up Felt On Commercial Roofs
| Comparison point | Commercial Flat Roofing | Built-Up Felt |
|---|---|---|
| Where it suits | Larger areas, simple to moderate detail | Smaller roofs, heavy detailing, tight budgets |
| Installation speed | Fast, wide sheets, few laps | Slower, layer on layer |
| Weight on the structure | Light, useful on older buildings | Heavier, particularly three layer |
| Flame on site | None, hot air welded or adhered | Torch, with the hot works that implies |
| Expected service life | 25 to 30 years on a good spec | 15 to 20 years |
| Repairs later | Welded patch, quick and clean | Straightforward, and very common |
Wind Uplift Is The Commercial Roof Killer Here
On a domestic extension, wind is a nuisance. On a twelve hundred square metre unit roof on open ground, wind is the entire engineering problem. The reason is simple geometry: uplift is worst at the perimeter and worse still at the corners, and a big roof has a great deal of both. Weston makes this sharper than most places, because the prevailing south-westerly crosses the Bristol Channel and reaches the industrial land here having been slowed down by absolutely nothing. Out at Locking, on the old airfield ground, there is not even a hedge in the way. That is why a proper commercial specification calculates fixing patterns by zone rather than using one spacing across the whole roof - more fasteners at the edges and corners, fewer in the middle, which is both safer and cheaper than doing the entire roof to corner spec. It is also why a roof that has started lifting at one corner needs looking at urgently rather than at the end of the quarter: once wind has a way in, it does not get bored. The same thinking applies to the rainwater goods, which on a large roof are moving a serious volume of water.
See what a flat roof costs in WestonWhat Commercial Flat Roofing Costs In Weston-super-Mare
Commercial work is priced per square metre and the rate falls as the area grows. As a rough guide, single ply on a straightforward unit roof commonly sits between £70 and £120 per square metre supplied and fitted, before access. Access is the line that moves most - a roof reachable from a yard is a different proposition to one over a live shop floor needing edge protection and out-of-hours working. Anything over a few hundred square metres gets surveyed and priced properly rather than estimated, and you get it broken down by phase so you can stage the spend across financial years if that suits.
See The Full Cost GuideCommercial Flat Roofing - Your Questions
Can you work outside our trading hours?
Yes, and on most retail and hospitality jobs around Weston that is what ends up happening. Evenings, Sundays, early mornings before opening, or a full shutdown week if you have one. It is worth raising at the first conversation because it changes how the job is phased and priced, and it is far easier to build in than to bolt on.
Our unit is full of stock. What happens if it rains?
Nothing, because the roof is never left open. Work gets sectioned so each area is watertight before anybody knocks off, and we do not open more in a day than can be closed in a day. On the rare occasion the forecast turns genuinely nasty mid-job, the sensible move is to stop early and close up rather than push on, and that is the call we will make.
Who pays - us or the landlord?
That depends entirely on your lease and we are not going to pretend to interpret it for you. What we can do is provide a quote and a condition report in a form that works for a service charge discussion, split into repair and improvement where that distinction matters, and deal directly with a managing agent if you would rather not be in the middle of it.
Do you do planned maintenance rather than just repairs?
Yes, and on a commercial flat roof it is the cheapest money you will spend. An annual visit to clear outlets, check laps and flashings and photograph anything developing will catch problems while they are still a few hundred pounds. Almost every large failure we attend was visible and cheap eighteen months earlier.
Can you overlay rather than strip the existing roof?
Sometimes, and when it works it saves real money and real disruption. It depends on what is under there, whether it is wet, and whether the structure can carry the extra load. We core it and check rather than guess. If the existing build-up is saturated, an overlay just seals the water in and you have bought yourself an expensive delay.
Which areas do you cover for commercial work?
Weston-super-Mare and the whole of North Somerset as standard, plus down onto the levels to Highbridge, Burnham and Bridgwater. For larger contracts we go further - Taunton, Yeovil, Bath and Bristol - because on a job of that size the travel is a rounding error. Ring and ask; if it is not for us, we will say so.
While you are here: Flat Roof Repairs ·Felt & Torch-On Roofing
Where We Work
Commercial Flat Roofing across Weston-super-Mare and out through North Somerset - Worle and Milton, the village cores at Uphill, Hutton and Bleadon, the new streets at Locking Parklands, and down onto the levels towards Highbridge and Burnham.
What People Say Afterwards
Flat roofing is a trade people only think about when something has gone wrong, so the bar is low and the horror stories are plentiful. Here is what customers around Weston and the levels have said about getting it done properly.
Two firms had already patched the same corner of our extension roof and both times it came back by Christmas. Ricky got up there, came down, and said the problem was that the water had nowhere to go - the whole thing sat in a dip. They rebuilt the falls and put rubber over it. Third winter now, still dry, and I have stopped keeping a bucket in the airing cupboard.
Ours is a bungalow near the old village so it is nearly all flat roof, and the salt off the Channel had eaten the edge trims to nothing. Quoted properly, itemised, and the price at the end was the price on the paper. They also spotted that the outlet had been fitted higher than the deck by whoever did it in the eighties, which explained a great deal.
New-ish house, flat canopy section over the front, leaking at one corner. I was braced for being told the whole lot needed replacing. James looked at it and said it was a single lap that had never been properly welded, charged me a fraction of what I had budgeted, and was gone by lunchtime. Genuinely refreshing.
We wanted the garage roof done and were dreading the whole business. Charlie turned up when he said he would, explained the difference between the warm and cold deck options without making us feel thick, and let us take a week to think about it with no chasing phone calls. The crew swept up so thoroughly you could not tell they had been.
We run a unit and the roof had been leaking over the racking for the best part of a year. They worked around us, did the noisy part on a Saturday so we never lost a day's trading, and the report they sent afterwards was detailed enough that our insurer accepted it without a single follow-up question. Cannot ask for much more than that.
I had put off dealing with the dormer for years because every quote I got was for the entire roof. RPS were the only ones who separated out what actually needed doing from what would be nice to do eventually. They did the dormer, told me the main covering had a good few years left, and did not once try to talk me into the bigger job.
Get A Price For Commercial Flat Roofing
Ring and describe what it is doing, or send a message and one of us will come and stand on it. Surveys are free, the number we write down is the number you pay, and if the honest answer is that your roof has another five winters in it, that is what you will be told.