Forums > General Discussion   Shooting the breeze...

WHY cant they build commercial buildings where the roof doesnt leak?

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Created by myusernam > 9 months ago, 5 Jul 2022
myusernam
QLD, 6091 posts
5 Jul 2022 12:10PM
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walking through a hospital today and there's a corridor in the hospital (only a few years old) with buckets and towels out because it's raining.
Same with just about every bunnings everytime it rains. It seems to be large roofs are heaps harder to seal than house roofs?
How hard can it be FFS. Theres all these super well designed and engineered buildings but they cant seal the roof? Makes you wonder how reliable the other parts of the engineering in the structure are

Revhead
ACT, 372 posts
5 Jul 2022 12:24PM
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Probs because no one does their job properly anymore. No pride in their work, no phucks given.

DavMen
NSW, 1498 posts
5 Jul 2022 12:36PM
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Because Architects come up with weird and wonderful(?) designs without any consideration on how difficult its going to be to make water tight.

elmo
WA, 8668 posts
5 Jul 2022 10:58AM
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I may be mistooken but it may have something to do with commercial roofs being flatter than residential.

Inclined roof the water runs of quicker whereas a flat roof the water can pool more allowing it to wick through overlaps and loose screws.

That said I've just had weeks of fun tracking down a leak on my tin roof.

But then again I may be in the wrong forest rather than barking up the wrong tree.

FormulaNova
WA, 14139 posts
5 Jul 2022 12:15PM
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Select to expand quote
elmo said..
I may be mistooken but it may have something to do with commercial roofs being flatter than residential.

Inclined roof the water runs of quicker whereas a flat roof the water can pool more allowing it to wick through overlaps and loose screws.

That said I've just had weeks of fun tracking down a leak on my tin roof.

But then again I may be in the wrong forest rather than barking up the wrong tree.


Makes you wonder. I remember seeing all these old factories where the rooves were made up of small angled sections, like a saw tooth type of thing. Now they seem to prefer to do it in single spans, so I wonder if this was one of the design considerations, or just a limitation of materials of the time?

woko
NSW, 1522 posts
5 Jul 2022 5:29PM
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I think the old way was definitely due to materials. All those truncated valleys would leak like sieves but folk lived a lot closer to nature then

decrepit
WA, 11885 posts
5 Jul 2022 4:05PM
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Box gutters, horrible things. No fall, smallest pin hole will be like Niagra. Yes and or flat roofs, not enough overlap in the joins. All sorts of things, water is a bugger, it's amazing how it can leak with no sign of where or how it's happening.

Macroscien
QLD, 6791 posts
5 Jul 2022 7:41PM
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Possibly Kiwi made the roof.
I know that almost all new buildings in NZ suffer from leaky syndrome .
That including my own commercial that is set for demolishing and rebuild due to this leak problem;

kk
WA, 941 posts
5 Jul 2022 7:31PM
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Box gutters, or un-insulated box gutters that don't leak but get condensation on them. Also lack of cleaning or poor design.

Low pitch roofs withy long runs, and every Tom Dick and Harry running around up there sevicing something

And Massive penetrations all over the place.

Add to that people that dont give fart, plus the people that have no clue but still cut holes in roof.

If you had a roof with no penetrations for vents, aircon, plumbing, elctrical, personel access, exuast fans....

You probably wouldn't have any leaks.

My rant is a reflection of my life trying to prevent exactly these problems

ok
NSW, 1087 posts
5 Jul 2022 11:32PM
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One word MAINTENANCE !

The gutter's or drainage will be blocked or slightly blocked somewhere.

It's this lack of maintenance that keeps me employed

psychojoe
WA, 1878 posts
6 Jul 2022 5:34AM
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Select to expand quote
Macroscien said..
Possibly Kiwi made the roof.
I know that almost all new buildings in NZ suffer from leaky syndrome .
That including my own commercial that is set for demolishing and rebuild due to this leak problem;


Why would a kiwi spend four years learning a trade below the poverty line when they can skate through a defence force apprenticeship at full wage getting a very narrow breadth of experience.

BlueMoon
865 posts
6 Jul 2022 7:24AM
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Sumps in box gutters.
So called Tradies not knowing how to install them properly, and not being able to, or just dont care to think about potential problems of doing a certain task a certain way.
If designed well, and installed well box gutters can solve a lot of roof drainage problems, but because the two rarely happen together, they are a recipe for disaster.

Harrow
NSW, 4520 posts
6 Jul 2022 9:44AM
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Just comes down to half the population being clueless, and the other half not giving a rat's. Then again, it's probably 3/4 of the population for each with a huge overlap having both.

Mark _australia
WA, 22114 posts
6 Jul 2022 9:55AM
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Its also the hospital being built by the lowest bidder in the fastest time, due to the mistaken belief that it may get one re-elected....


Subsonic
WA, 2975 posts
6 Jul 2022 1:01PM
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Its bad enough with a low pitch tiled roof on a house, let alone a comparatively massive roof. If it rains hard enough, any gaps/things that aren't quite right start to leak.



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Forums > General Discussion   Shooting the breeze...


"WHY cant they build commercial buildings where the roof doesnt leak?" started by myusernam