# TPO roof problems



## Jballantyne

Hello, 

A client of mine has a recently installed flat roof on his building and it appears the installers did a poor job. Plenty of air bubbles and lots of pooling water. Check out these pictures: 

Any thoughts? What is the best way to deal with this?


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## shazapple

Insulation sumps at the roof drains would help with the ponding.


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## 1985gt

Hiring someone who could do more then just slap down a membrane would also. If it's mechanically attached the wrinkles are fairly normal. If not it is an issue. To me it looks like they put crickets between the drains but used flat insulation on the rest. Bad workmanship all aroun.d


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## Joe Roofer

By the looks of the water level there is not much pitch there--it looks as if the deck is level and the water is standing at the compression ring's height. Not sure who's problem that is. Were the roofers supposed to add the pitch?


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## jessica123

*your answer*



Jballantyne said:


> Hello,
> 
> A client of mine has a recently installed flat roof on his building and it appears the installers did a poor job. Plenty of air bubbles and lots of pooling water. Check out these pictures:
> 
> Any thoughts? What is the best way to deal with this?


you need to sump the drains remove the drain ring bow out the drains and install tapered edge that should get the roof to drain


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## Grumpy

I am glad to see that nobody said, "But ponding water is not a warranty exclusion on TPO." It's been said, but sump and taper will REDUCE this problem. There's no way to really really get rid of all ponding on a flat roof, without taper, and even with taper a puddle here and a puddle there will sometimes happen. The What is critical is the size of the puddle and the depth of the puddle, and how long it sits on the roof. 

A few rules of thumb that I use If the puddle evaporates within a day it is a non issue. If the puddle evaporates within 48 hours it's probably still a non issue. If it's deeper than 1/2" it may need some attention.

At the end of every day we try to make sure we can build up low spots with a little extra insulation fill here and there, but you can not compensate for all dips, and sometimes you just end up moving the puddle. 

I had to take a guy to court because there was a small puddle less than 1/8" deep right at the gutter. The substrate had sagged and though we put a little more fill in the low spots, there was still one small puddle. Now when ever I bid a flat roof and it looks like puddling may be a problem or the customer complains about puddling on the roof during our conversations, I will option out a fully tapered system on the roof. Usually the decide after seeing the price for a fully tapered system that they can deal with a few minor puddles. Sumps and crickets are standard however.


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