Is your roof tar and gravel or smooth surface flat roof? If smooth surface, use a squeegie to push the water off.

If it is tar and gravel, use heavy broom to push gravel off to the side, and just let it dry or you can use the rags – I mean it’s water and there isn’t much you can do to speed up drying process. I don’t recommend using any torches as you can burn down your house.

Best of luck

“In general your roof is in decent shape however there are couple spots better to be addressed. The roof was patched years ago close to the hatch and sunlight and this particular area shows cracks and wear from weather. Around the hatch and sunlight frames are holes and cracks water possibly seeps through them as well. Hatch itself need to be recovered/recoated too the coating is brittle and disintegrating. Also the vent pipe cracked at the base and water could get there but that water may not find the way to the beams/stucco/walls.

I would charge $350 labor only to patch your roof plus 50 bucks if you want to fix the vent. I want very hot day, 5 gallons of Karnak tar and couple rolls of roofing tape. If it’s OK with you we can set the day and you bring the material. If I supply all the materials I would charge $150 extra.”

I have a low pitch tar and gravel roof that is leaking in several different areas on one side of the room. I am having trouble pin pointing where they are coming from and have tried to patch and spread tar based coatings but nothing seems to stop the leaks. I thought i had repaired them this past summer but with a few hard rains I am back where I started. When on the roof I see no visible bubbles to patch. Should I brush all the gravel back and try an aluminum coating instead? or can you recommend another avenue without replacing the roof?

If your roof leaks in only one spot, you can probably repair it and don’t need to replace it, unless it is horrible shape and will start leaking like a sieve any moment.

Right of the bet, DO NOT go with new tar roof – tar and gravel roofs are a thing of the past, difficult to diagnose and repair when they leak, and you are much better off going with a single ply PVC roof such as IB Flat Roof.

Back to your current roof – if you send us some pics of the roof area which you suspect to be leaking, I might be able to diagnose it… without more information on your roof, I can’t really give you an advise. However, I have a question – why does your contractor want to replace a sloped (asphalt shingles) roof with a tar roof, which is a flat roofing material?

Right off the bet, I have to say that tar is not compatible with rubber and will in time damage the membrane. It’s best to use Solar Seal 900 as the sealer between the two, and it works much better than tar. I would insert a 1″ thick deck board cut in half, longways, under the joint between tar and rubber roof. This will create a small improvised separation wall, and keep the joint above water. Do the joint the same way as you did it, by having tar roof over the rubber. Scrape off as much tar as you can and apply a thick bead of Solar Seal caulking between the two roofs, with the 1″ decking board, sitting directly under the joint. Make sure your overlap is at least 3-4 inches.

I would also recommend adding a bead of Water Stop (also known as Water Cut-off) behind the Solar seal, for better seal.

Once you did the overlap, get some aluminum or galvanized steel termination bar and screw it over the seam, using corrosion resistant roofing screws. Make sure that screws go through both roofs, where the bead of caulking runs, so each screw is sealed. Before you put in the screw, ad a “drop” of solar seal, where the screw will penetrate the roof. Seal the head of each screw with solar seal.

In the end, you will have the joint sitting above the roof line, so water should have very limited access to the joint. This seal should hold for a number of years. One thing that can compromise the quality of the seam is the tar on the rubber.

Good luck.

I used self-adhesive seam tape around the rubber patch, and then caulked all the seams with roof caulking. This procedure has been very successful on the other mills that I maintain which have full rubber roofs.

Unfortunately, I do not know how to handle the intersection of the rubber roof and the T&G roof. I peeled back about 2′ of the T&G roof. It had some type of cardboard or tar paper underneath the tar. I applied some tar under the edge of the rubber patch, pressed the patch into the tar, and applied tar over the edge of the rubber patch. I took the part of the T&G roof that I had peeled back, and placed it back in position. At this point the edge of the T&G section was lying on top of the edge of the rubber patch with tar used to bond them. I then took tar and fiberglass tape and covered the top of the intersection of the T&G roof with the rubber patch.

After all this work, the entire edge of the T&G roof is leaking just as bad as before. Can anyone give me some advice on how to marry the T&G roof to the rubber. I am just trying to make it through the winter.

Thanks,
Bill

You are pretty much correct about repairing this roof leak. What I would do – remove about 3 feet of asphalt shingles – 6-7 rows. Fabricate a metal flashing with 7-8 flange with 3/4″ hem (back bend for stiffening purpose) that would lay on the flat roof portion, and 12-18 inches on the pitched roof portion. Any siding contractor can manufacture this for you pretty cheaply, using aluminum flat stock. Have the make it out of thicker gauge metal – .032″ aluminum would be ideal, but anything above .022 is ok.

On the flat roof portion I would remove all gravel, about 1 foot away from the pitch change (connection point between flat and sloped roof). Clean up the area (sweep, and blow some pressured air using a compressor) and apply thick layer of tar over this area and up the roof slope.

Then I would get Solar Seal 900 caulking and Water Cut-Off caulking from a roofing supply warehouse. I would run two beads of caulking – Water Cut-off on the inside of the flange – about 1.5 inches from the edge, and Solar Seal 900 about 1/2″ from the edge.

Install the metal flashing down, and seal joints with 3″ overlap and 2 beads of solar seal between them. Use come roofing screws or exterior rubber washer screws to attache the flange to the flat roof portion, and regular roofing nails to attach the metal flashing to the sloped roof. Seal the screw heads with Solar Seal.

Then use Grace Ice and Water shield to cover the one foot of metal flashing that is going up the roof slope. I&W shield is 3 feet wide and should cover the rest of the pitched roof where you removed the shingles. You can use some Solar Seal at the bottom of the Ice and water shield – it will seal against wind driven water.

Install your shingles back.

You really don’t need to extend your flashing more than 7-8 inches on the flat roof portion. Water cut-off and solar seal will do the trick for many years. Make sure that the angle of the metal flashing is slightly wider than the angle between the the flat and pitched roofs, so that your metal flashing is not popping up. You can use degrees or roof pitch to measure the angle on the metal flashing. Also, make sure that tar paper / felt, overlaps the Ice and Water shield.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes. You can even send in the pictures of your roof repair.