Leaking roof terrace

[carolyn]

We have been told by our manager that after all the storms last week, the roof terrace of our villa has leaked and water has come through into the rooms below. When our villa was refurbished 5 years ago the roof terrace was waterproofed to a height of 20cm up the terrace walls and then retiled, so we are surprised to have this problem. Is 5 years a normal length of time for waterproof sealant to last? Should the waterproofing have gone further up the walls? Any suggestions/advice would be welcome.

[Jaylay]

We have lived here 19 years and had a house here 5 years before that, in all that time we have never had such heavy rain for so long.
Lost of roofs caused problems and our pool terrace which had plenty of drainage and copes normally was flooded, we had a pump working and still could not clear the water it was coming down faster than we could clear it. We were on hand to try to do something about it if the property was empty there would have be no chance of stopping it coming into the house.
With reguard to roof terrace it is likely that the water rose higher than anyone would normally expect and it went over the height of your waterproofing, usually caused by the downpipes being blocked with leaves moss etc. but in this last spell of heavy rain it could just have been the sheer volume of rain. My cousin, who is a builder, drilled a hole through his roof fixed a hose pipe on it and put it out of the window, that is how much rain fell.
Lots of insurance claims are likely to be made in the next few days.

[Alison]

We have just had a new membrane put on our roof having had several leaks over the past year or two whenever there was heavy rain. We had tried renewing the grouting on the roof tiles etc but eventually had to give in and redo the whole terrace and steps. The new membrane has been put in to virtually double the original height round the roof terrace walls so we are hoping this will solve the problem for ??? years. I tried to copy and paste a photo of the new height for you here but that wouldn't work so I'll see if the pm system will let me do it. Failing that if you send me an email I will email the photo to you - it looks from the photo as though the new height is also at least 20cm. ( Haven't seen it personally myself yet - all sorted out by our excellent villa manager.)

[carolyn]

Thanks for this info - its hard to imagine how heavy the rain was when we were not actually there!
It would be great to see your photo Alison - I will pm you with an email address, thanks.

All this should help us make a decision as to whether it is worth having the roof terrace resealed again.

[laserblazer]

That's cocked the formatting up. I'll resize it in the morning.

That's better.

[sam]

This seems to be a problems with a lot of roof/balcony terraces.

Our roof terrace leaked and we redid grouting, then clear watrerproof coating. This is temporary. Did you waterproof and retile over old tiles, or remove them and start again?

[Al Garb]

Tiles should be regarded as "decoration". It is inevitably the membrane underneath that is the problem

[Michael Crane]

.... I tried to copy and paste a photo of the new height for you here but that wouldn't ...)

In FAQ

[Alison]

Thanks MC - I suppose I should get round to working out how to do it one day. However, I now have my very own photo rep - I just send it to laserblaser and he does it for me - much easier! (Thanks very much LB!) Anyway..... I'm trying not to think about roof terraces/tiling any more etc as I have just had the bill in for all the work - Ouch!

[carolyn]

Thanks for the various replies to my original query. We have just returned from CVO and so were able to see the water damage for ourselves.

It would appear that there is a crack in the paintwork round the terrace walls where the waterproof membrane ends, and when the rain is very heavy the water pours down the walls (as they are flat topped) and penetrates this crack. We are about to have a repaint, so hope that this might resolve the problem. Our other idea was to cap the walls in some way so the water does not run down them?? (Any ideas??) The good thing is it appears that the membrane on the roof itself is still intact - it was done properly by lifting the tiles and then retiling on top of the membrane. The weak point appears to be where it ends.

As others have said - we may just accept that water leaks are a way of life!

[tbbr]

We had a problem with the internal drainage from the roof through the wall not draining away fast enough. This was cured by putting in new outside drains..

it must have been a problem as on New blocks they have gone to conventional plastic down pipes to take the water off the roofs and terraces.