Anybody know about flat roofs?

[Superjag]

Here's the deal. I Live in Minnesota. The geniuses who owned my house before me added a front room/living room. It has a flat rubber (EPDM?) roof. The holes for the downspouts are at the corners of the roof, and the corners are 3-4 inches higher than the middle of the roof!! So the result is that when it rains I have a nice 4" deep swimming pool on my roof. The upside is that if I wanted to, I could flood it in the winter and have a pond hockey game up there. The downside is that I believe that the roof is finally starting to leak, as I recently noticed a very small water spot on my ceiling below that room. I talked to a friend of a friend, who told me that he thought that I can (hire someone to) build strategically placed "humps" made of insulation covered in rubber sheeting, which will direct the water to the holes for the downspouts.
Anybody know anything about this? Any other ideas for how I can fix this? Is this going to involve a whole new roof on that section of the house?
Thanks in advance.
MZH

 

[Ollie]

One other option I have used.
Get ahold of an industrial roofing company and have them use spray foam to build up the middle and they can taper it off on the edges and literally rebuild the pitch and drainage of the roof.

 

[snopropanther]

a flat roof is well, flat. looks to me that they forgot to have a slight drain angle.

 

[To The Pipe]

The shop I work in had the same problem. A roofer came in with sheets of beadboard (styrafoam) insulation and built up some layers to get it to drain and then laid down some more rubber roofing material. It has been two years now and still no leaks so it seams to have worked.

 

[Superjag]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like it hopefully might not be too bad a hit to the wallet. The birds are gonna be pissed, as I'm taking away their community pool.

 

[JDKZRT]

Is this going to involve a whole new roof on that section of the house?

MZH

This was the only fix for a low pitch roof on my parents house.....building 5/12 rafters right ontop of the original roof. This may not be too bad a job if you can tie into your current roofline at 90 degrees with the new rafters/sheeting and IF the current flat roof is engineered for your area's snowload.

 

[wildcard]

Has the roof sagged in the middle? Any way to put a beam in and jack it up then support it with a post without screwing up the room?

 

[skidoorulz]

Put trusses up. 4 12 pitch shoud be good enough. Why anyone would put a flat roof or even a slight pitch tar and gravel roof on a house anywhere short of a desert is beyond me.

 

[wildcard]

Not to hijack, but are you a roofer? I have a "flat" roof question... I want a flat roof that can be walked on as in a second story deck. It will have enough pitch to drain and I needs it to be snow removal frendly as well as drunk chick coming out of the hot tub naked frendly. Any suggestions?

 

[Good to Go]

Not to hijack, but are you a roofer? I have a "flat" roof question... I want a flat roof that can be walked on as in a second story deck. It will have enough pitch to drain and I needs it to be snow removal frendly as well as drunk chick coming out of the hot tub naked frendly. Any suggestions?

Rent. Landlords problem...