Mildenhall Roofers handles flat and pitched commercial roofing repairs and replacements for businesses, farms and light industrial properties in and around Newmarket.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
Commercial roofing work in Newmarket and the surrounding area covers everything from leaking warehouse roofs and failing felt membranes to full re-roofing of agricultural and retail buildings. The work involves different materials, access methods and timescales to domestic roofing, and getting the decisions right at the start saves money in the long run.
The most important decision you will face is straightforward but easy to get wrong: should you repair the roof you have, or replace it entirely?
There is no universal answer, but there is a logical way to work through it. The decision depends on the age and condition of the existing roof covering, the number and location of failure points, whether the underlying structure is sound, and your plans for the building. Getting this wrong in either direction costs money - replacing a roof that had years of life left is expensive and unnecessary; patching a roof that is at end of life creates a cycle of repeated repair bills.
Repair is the right choice when the roof covering is structurally intact and the failure is localised. A single split in a felt membrane, a flashing that has lifted away from a parapet wall, or a handful of damaged roof sheets on a profiled steel agricultural building - these are all situations where targeted repair is quicker, cheaper and the sensible option.
On a well-laid felt or single-ply membrane that is less than ten to fifteen years old, an isolated repair will usually hold well. The key is that the rest of the membrane is still bonded, free from blistering and not showing signs of widespread cracking or crazing. If a contractor finds these problems only in one area, repair is likely to be cost-effective.
Localised repairs on commercial flat roofs in Newmarket and nearby areas such as Kentford, Barton Mills and Herringswell typically cost in the range of £300 to £800 for a single area, depending on access and the extent of the damage. These are indicative figures - the actual cost depends on the specific situation.
A common problem on older commercial flat roofs is multiple separate failure points. If a contractor identifies three or four splits or blisters across a roof, there are likely more that are not yet showing through to the inside. Each repair buys a little time but does not address the underlying cause, which is usually membrane age, poor original installation, or failed bonding across the whole surface.
If the roof has already been patched more than once in the same areas, the patches themselves can cause problems. A patch laid over an existing patch changes the dynamics of how the membrane expands and contracts with temperature, and new splits often appear at the edges of old repairs. At some point, further patching becomes more expensive than a clean replacement.
A full commercial flat roof replacement on a typical light industrial or retail unit means stripping back to the deck, checking the deck for rot, delamination or structural movement and replacing any sections that are not sound, then installing new insulation and a new membrane. The membrane choice - torch-on felt or single-ply EPDM or TPO - depends on the roof area, the deck type and the falls.
Flashings, upstands, rooflights and penetrations all need to be detailed correctly. This is where many cheaper jobs fail first - the field of the membrane is fine but water tracks in at the parapet or around an extraction vent. Ask specifically how these details will be handled and what material will be used.
Replacement costs for commercial flat roofs in the Newmarket area typically fall between £80 and £130 per square metre for a standard felt or EPDM system, depending on the specification, access requirements and the condition of the existing deck. These figures give a realistic starting point for budgeting, not a firm quote.
On agricultural buildings with profiled steel or fibre cement sheet roofing, the repair-versus-replace question works differently. Individual sheets can be replaced if the damage is limited and matching material is available. But older fibre cement sheets can become brittle and unsafe to walk on, and corrugated steel that has rusted through at fixings is rarely worth patching. When a significant proportion of the sheets or fixings are failing, a full re-sheet is generally safer and more cost-effective than ongoing piecemeal work.
Older agricultural structures often have sheet roofing that has reached the end of a long working life. In these cases, checking the condition of the purlins before committing to a re-sheet is essential - replacing sheets on failing purlins is money wasted.
If you have already had one contractor tell you the roof needs replacing, it is entirely reasonable to get a second assessment before you commit to the spend. A contractor who has inspected the roof should be able to show you photographs of the problem areas and explain exactly why they are recommending what they are recommending. If the recommendation is repair, ask how long that repair is likely to extend the roof's life. If it is replacement, ask what condition the deck is expected to be in once the old covering is stripped.
Mildenhall Roofers carries out commercial roofing repairs and replacements across Newmarket and the surrounding villages. Call us to arrange a roof survey and get a clear picture of what your building actually needs before you make a decision.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
