On the West Coast

With the first fall rains this year Absolute Roof Solutions has received a surprising number of calls from homeowners who have concrete tile roofs that were leaking. I could hear the discontent in their voices as they described roof leaks all over the house. With Concrete Tile roofs they are made to last a very long time, so when I get a phone call from an owner with Tile roofs that leak, I have a sinking feeling in my heart as I can often guess what the problem is.

Of course when it comes to roofing I will be the first to admit I can be wrong and so comes my first statement about roofing. “Mr. Customer! I might be wrong but it appears your Built in gutters are leaking”.

Obviously I get the customer to tell me all the problems and leak symptoms he can observe, but after a few minutes and if the signs are typical it is usually fairly easy from that point to realize that the persons Built in gutters or EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomers) gutter liner has either failed, worn out, seams released or in rare cases been physically damaged.

As a matter of fact EPDM rubber has recently received an award for the longest, most durable roofing system. So when you hear of them leaking it just doesn’t sound right, especially to the homeowner.

So what is my point?

My point is that the EPDM rubber membrane gutter liner in this case must be applied according to the manufacturers’ instructions. Very important. When they are not installed per the manufacturer’s instructions, eventually the seams that overlap each other (usually at corners and drains) release from each other and water can work its way through and leak into the soffits.

A very important point for installing EPDM gutters or Built in rubber gutters in Vancouver is that the adhesive glue must be applied at 10deg. Celsius or better for it to work properly. This means that come mid October you pretty well can’t do many EPDM gutter installs. Now of course the roofer can use a heat gun or hair dryer to assist the adhesive in curing or “flashing” but it is slow and if you are doing a whole house with many corners and drains it could take a long time.

So temperature plays a big part in achieving a good seal with EPDM rubber and can make the difference between lasting 5-10 years and lasting over 20 years. Another problem with installing EPDM rubber for gutter liners is that when you get to a corner the rubber has to be laid and cut so as to lay flat and not lift up or curl up, this is called “tenting”. When this happens you have a restricted flow of water around the gutter corners, the water level has to build up higher, to make it around each corner. Compounding this issue is that “tented” corners restrict the flow of water along with needles and leaf debris and it creates a dam at the corners and then overflows the gutter edges.

Some people mistake this overflow for leaking EPDM gutters. It can really be an annoyance when that part of the roof is over a walkway causing people to get wet and possibly ice up side walks too.

One way to help prevent the tenting is to ensure your EPDM gutter liner is glued down to the gutter bottom. In case that sounds too simple, don’t worry we’ll make it more difficult. You cannot use the same adhesive to glue the rubber to the wooden deck as the adhesive used to Glue rubber to rubber. Sometimes the roofer doesn’t have the right glue, other times the glue may be from a partial can already opened and does not apply as well. Some roofing suppliers only carry one type of the adhesive and the roofer has to drive across town for the right one. (Doesn’t bother!)

If all the above still doesn’t sound too bad then let’s add the last one, my favorite. “How to seal an EPDM gutter drain.” Nail the drain into the wood and glue the rubber down right? Nope sorry it will leak soon afterward.

There are several ways to seal a copper drain in an EPDM gutter system that will last over 20 years, a diagram of the layout and some technical descriptive passages to describe it would get it done properly by the roofer. These are available at the manufacturers Web sites.

But after all that is said and done, in reality it is sometimes worse than all the above. Take the wooden deck under the old rubber liner, often does not have a flat bottom and the drain hole that has been drilled into the soffit is at a 45 degree angle facing the house and the hole exits the soffit only 3-4 inches from the house wall making the new drain hard to install flush and connecting the down pipe at the underside is at an odd angle. Then there is the situation where the drain has been placed next to an odd corner or to make it even worse a 3 way corner. After all the corners are cut and sealed, the drain is ½ to ¾ of an inch higher than the surronding areas and there is always water sitting there.

At the end it feels like you’re one of Jim Carey’s customers in a comedy movie, but you aint laughing and the roofer IS Jim Carey and he’s laughing hysterically, not because he doesn’t care but because he does and he has gone into complete glee with all the complications.

EPDM is a GREAT product; it just needs to be done right.

Keith Kinvig
Absolute Roof Solutions

www.absoluteroof.ca