Five Ways to Prevent Roof Leakage in a Commercial Establishment

A leaking roof is the worst nightmare of a commercial property owner, whether it’s an office, museum, or hotel. A leaking roof can destroy your reputation, goodwill, and your employees’ morale. In UK, leak detection specialists can spot hidden leakages in various parts of your commercial building and repair them, but following these tips will help you take care of the situation beforehand.

Check the Leak Hot Spots

The most usual places where leakages occur are the basement, plumbing vent flashing, ice dams, skylights, wall step flashings, fields of shingles and missing shingles. Since you may not find the areas in dry season, you need to perform a check when it rains or snows. A roof may also leak if it is worn out and needs to be replaced.

Emergency Fixes

If the roof starts to leak suddenly and if it isn’t possible to immediately call leak detection specialists, UK residents can take care of it by covering the area with plastic sheets. The sheets need to be staples and nailed along the eaves to cover the entire leak area.

Damaged Shingles and Improperly Installed Flashing

Back-bent shingles are very often a cause for roof leakages and improperly installed flashing can often cause blow-offs and roof collapse. In such a case, the shingles must be replaced and the flashing reinstalled.

Faulty Pipes

Faulty pipes can be a source of leaking roofs and call for replacement. If the wood beneath the roof is soft from damage then you should consider re-roofing to prevent rotting. For building leak detection, UK office owners should contact leak detection companies to check damage and imminent roof collapse in time.

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Effective Tips to Prevent Basement Leaks

Basement leakage may be caused due to number of reasons including a crack in the building foundation, poor lot grading or drainage, overflowing eaves troughs, blocked connection between the building and the main sewer in the street or a back-up of wastewater in the sewer system. Basement leak detection in UK helps you to fix the leakage problems. Water leakage in the basements can be avoided by following a few maintenance tips.
Install Gutters Installing gutters and downspouts prevent rain water from dumping to your foundation wall. Maintaining and cleaning gutters at regular intervals is necessary because clogged or broken gutters are also one among the reasons to cause basement leakage.
Landscaping If you are having a yard that slopes towards the fountain then this may cause a serious problem. This creates a channel for water to collect and causes a serious mess. So, landscaping and grade should always slope away from the foundation and this set up prevents basement seepage.
Proper Yard Drainage Without a proper drainage, the excess rainwater gets collected in the yard and hydrostatic pressure problem. Having an exterior yard drainage installed gets the water away from the foundation and prevents seepage. Water buildup can also be avoided with French drains.
Snow Drift During winter there might be a heavy snowfall and it’s common to shovel snow into a pile by the foundation wall. Even though it’s common it’s not a good idea because when the snow melts the water gets stagnated near the foundation wall and causes leakage.
With these simple tips and proper leakage detection in UK, basement leakage can be controlled to a small extent.

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Advantages of Electronic Leak Detection over Traditional Testing Methods

Water leaks through the roof and building structure is a problem in many commercial establishments. It is estimated that almost 50% of newly built buildings in the UK encounter water leakage within the first year of building them. Over the years there have been many ways of detecting leaks in building structures, but one of the more effective methods of finding a leak has been through electronic testing rather than traditional methods.

Here is a look at why electronic leak detection testing is better than traditional methods of finding leaks.

Efficiency:

Electronic leak detection has the ability to detect the exact source of where the leak originates by taking advantage of the natural property of water to conduct electricity. Physically finding leaks and using flood detection cannot pinpoint the source effectively all the time, especially in large roof sections of a commercial establishment.

Time saving:

Traditional leak detection may take hours or even days to detect the leak (Involves draining and drying test area), but the electronic method does it in a few minutes. In the case of high-voltage testing, repairs can be completed immediately.

No issue of slopes:

Sloped decks in the building structure won’t be an easy place to test while conducting a flood test.

Less risk:

When a roof is renovated and test is conducted for water leak there is no risk of interior damage to the building structure or the drainage systems if the drains are unplugged. A far less amount of water is required in the electrical method.

For expert roofing consultants in UK get in touch with Thornton Consulting.

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