East Lancashire is our home patch. We are based in the Ribble Valley and the six boroughs, Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale and Ribble Valley, are where most of our domestic flat roof work is done. The housing is older than the national average, and the flat roofs on it are mostly additions: back extensions on terraces, garages and porches on the estates, dormers on the bungalows.
Nearly all of them were built with a felt covering over a timber deck and next to no insulation. Forty years on, the felt is chalky and patched, water sits in the low spots, and the room underneath is the coldest in the house. The answer is not another layer of felt. It is a warm roof: strip to the deck, vapour control layer, over 100 mm of PIR insulation, a new deck and a single sheet of EPDM, with the edges and abutments formed properly.
The stone and brick terraces of Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, Nelson and Colne mostly have a rear outrigger, and a good share have had a bathroom or kitchen extension built onto it since the 1960s, usually with a felt flat roof. Access is from the back yard, scaffold goes up in the morning, and the roof is usually done in a day.
The estates that went up around Darwen, Oswaldtwistle, Great Harwood, Clitheroe, Whalley and Barnoldswick in the 1960s and 70s have flat roofs over the integral garage, the porch or a side extension. The room over the garage is the one that never warms up; a warm roof under it is the fix.
East Lancashire sits on the west side of the Pennines and takes the rain first. A felt roof that ponds does not last here. We form the falls, the kerbs and the outlets so the water leaves the roof, and bond a single sheet of EPDM with no seams across the field for it to find.
Flat roof insulation is a PAS 2030 measure, so it can sit inside funded retrofit programmes such as Warm Homes: Local Grant and the Social Housing Fund. We survey and price roof by roof, deliver with residents at home, and hand over a photographic record of every layer for the evidence pack.
The same warm roof build up on three very different roofs: a garage, a rear extension and an L shaped wraparound. Every layer photographed on the day. These three are in North Wales and Merseyside; the roofs we do in East Lancashire are built the same way.
Old felt stripped to the deck, vapour control layer, over 100 mm of PIR, new OSB, EPDM and new fascias, between lunchtime and teatime.
Read the case study →
A stained, ponding kitchen extension roof rebuilt as a warm roof with the insulation above the joists, edges and abutment formed properly.
Read the case study →
Surveyed in July, rebuilt over two days in August: over 100 mm of PIR, new deck, EPDM, and new white fascias to match the cladding.
Read the case study →Running a programme? Torentum Court, Fleetwood: fifteen flat roofs and 179 m of tiles reinstated on an occupied independent living scheme, delivered under our PAS 2030 certification for flat roof insulation. All case studies →
Extension roofs, dormers, garages and porches from Clitheroe to Colne. The rooms under them are the cold ones in winter and the hot ones in summer, and a warm roof fixes both.
The same crews and the same paperwork across a street or a scheme, for the housing associations and councils of East Lancashire and the main contractors delivering their programmes.
How a warm roof is built, what it costs to run and the full FAQ are on our flat roof insulation page. Pitched roofs, repairs and re-roofing are on roofing.
A garage, porch or single extension roof is usually stripped, insulated and finished in one working day. An L shaped or wraparound roof takes two. We never strip more than we can make weathertight the same day, so nothing is left open overnight.
For an existing house, yes. A warm roof puts the insulation above the deck with a vapour control layer beneath and the membrane on top, so the joists stay on the warm side and condensation has nowhere to form. A cold roof, with insulation pushed between the joists, needs ventilation to stay dry and rarely gets it on a retrofit.
Sometimes, but it does nothing for the insulation and hides whatever the old covering is sitting on. If the roof is at the end of its life we take it back to the deck, check the timber and rebuild it as a warm roof, then photograph every layer so you can see what you paid for.
Insulation is zero rated for VAT on residential property until 31 March 2027, and that includes the insulation in a warm roof. If you are a social housing tenant, ask your landlord: flat roof insulation is a PAS 2030 measure, so it can be delivered inside funded retrofit programmes such as Warm Homes: Local Grant and the Social Housing Fund, and we are certified to install it.
All of East Lancashire: Blackburn, Darwen, Accrington, Oswaldtwistle, Great Harwood, Rishton, Clitheroe, Whalley, Longridge, Burnley, Padiham, Nelson, Colne, Barnoldswick, Earby, Rawtenstall, Bacup and Haslingden, and the villages between, covering the BB and OL13 postcodes. We also cover Greater Manchester and South Ribble and Leyland.
Homeowners get a free, no obligation survey and a straight answer. Housing providers and contractors get a measured package from a PAS 2030 certified installer of flat roof insulation.
