Types of soft roofing. Soft roof: reviews

One of the oldest methods of coating roofs is a soft roof. Its history begins with the way a man stretched a bark of a tree or a skin on poles, to be protected from the sun and a rain. Today, fur for the roof, of course, no one is using, there is a huge amount of other, much more effective materials. And also a lot of technologies, with which you can make its device.

All types of soft roof have their shortcomings and advantages.

Advantages

Among the advantages of a soft roof are the following:

• The ability to arrange roofs of various complex shapes;
• Ease of installation, while not requiring the use of heavy equipment;
• Excellent waterproofing qualities;
• Good maintainability;
• Low specific gravity;
• When the rain does not create noise;
• Not exposed to corrosion;
• When installing a small amount of waste;
• low cost.

Minuses

It should be understood that any kind of soft roof, despite the mass of its positive properties, have disadvantages. Although science and technology are not worth the spot, and materials are being constantly improved.

So, the cons:

• The need for a solid foundation;
• Low fire resistance;
• Weak thermal insulation qualities;
• If a small area is damaged, it is required to replace the whole sheet.

Types of soft roofing

Only half a century ago the amount of materials for its device was limited to 2-3 names, among which were several types of roofing felt, and also only on the basis of bitumen-impregnated paper.

Today, the types of soft roof roofs are represented by a variety of materials on a diverse basis with different properties, scope and appearance. New varieties appear almost every day, so in this article we will try to tell at least about the most common of them.

Flexible shingles

This is the so-called bituminous soft roof (its kinds are of different shapes and colors, but we'll talk about it below). It consists of three layers. The outer - visible to us - is a stone colored crumb. Then comes the bitumen applied from 2 sides to the fiberglass. And the bottom layer - rubber-bitumen. Also it is glue. It should be noted that this type of roof provides maximum efficiency in terms of leaks (water resistance) and absolute tightness of the coating. Also its important qualities are absence of exfoliation, decay and corrosion. Also, when installing such a roof, the smallest percentage of waste. By comparison, waste when creating roofs from metal tiles reach 50%. At the same time, for flexible shingles , 5% withdrawal is already qualified as very large.

This soft roof species has the most diverse. It is produced in the widest color range and a huge variety of shapes: hexahedrons, rectangles, semicircles; There is laminated and multilayered tiles.

Its advantage is the possibility of creating a roof with a complex geometry, which makes it possible to satisfy the demands of the most demanding customers, and also to realize the unusual intentions of architects. In addition, such a roof is absolutely noiseless material, because it has excellent sound insulation properties. The guarantee is an average of 20 years, but the actual service life reaches half a century.

Among the shortcomings of such a roof can be identified only the cost, which is much higher than that of metal. This is due to the fact that this material requires a perfectly flat base (laths made of moisture-proof plywood or dry wood, which are not cheap). Its main producers are Ruflex, Icopal, Tegola, Tekhnonikol.

Roll roofing

It should immediately be stipulated that the roll soft roof species has different. One of the most popular and cheap materials in this category is an ordinary, all-known roofing material. Its foundation is bitumen-impregnated roofing cardboard. After such treatment, both sides are covered with a special layer consisting of a mixture of mineral filler and bitumen. The last stage of production involves coating the outer part of the roll with a powder. It should be emphasized that such roofing felt from roofing is distinguished by the density of cardboard.

The life of such material is 5 years. At the moment, the technology has changed a little, and in the base to the cardboard is often added polyester fabric or fiberglass canvas. Changes in technology have made it possible to double the durability of the operation of the material.

Another popular roofing material is rubaste, which is characterized as a floating bituminous material. Its main difference from roofing felt is in the high content of bitumen, which is located in the lower part of the canvas.

Similar types of soft roof, the photos of which are presented in this article, are called glass ruberoid, glass-insulator and glass-melt. Their basis is fiberglass. At the present moment, one of the most advanced options among roll materials is eurorebroid - it is a bitumen-polymer membrane.

After acquaintance with kinds of roll materials the reasonable question on how they are made arises. Their manufacturing technology is uncomplicated. A special coating layer (mixture of bitumen and polymer additives) is applied to a substrate of glass fiber or polyester. The life of this material is about 20 years. Its only drawback is poor resistance to low temperatures, therefore, when laying it is necessary to provide at least 3-4 layers.

All roll materials are suitable for roofs with a slope of 45 °. Since the roll roofing paper has a sufficiently high level of watertightness, it is used even on flat roofs. Such materials are made in the form of cloths, which are then cut and rolled into large rolls. Their width is generally 1 m with a length of 10-15 m.

Membrane roofing

This term should be understood as all kinds of soft roof roll type. Such materials are produced in different types:

• Polyolefin roofing.
• Thermoplastic roof.
• Ethylene-propylene-diene-monomeric roof.
• Polyvinylchloride roofing.

The polymer membrane in the west has been used for more than 50 years, we have this material is known for about two decades. At the moment, about 80% of all roofing soft materials are in the polymer membrane in Europe.

It is characterized by flexibility, high strength, frost resistance, weather and ozone resistance, resistance to oxidation and ultraviolet rays. It also has a long life - its service life is about 50 years without repair.

The ease of use is ensured by the considerable width of the membrane, which makes it possible to select the optimum size for the roofing of industrial buildings and large construction projects, which minimizes the number of seams. Mounting of the membrane roof can be performed throughout the year.

Soft roof: types, reviews

Today, you can find a lot of positive feedback on the soft roof. People note the possibility of creating roofs of various forms, the absence of noise in the rain, ease of installation. Of course, along with all the positive feedback can be found and negative, associated mainly with the need to create a solid foundation, which creates additional costs for materials and works of masters.

Roof installation

Many varieties have a soft roof, the types of work, therefore, also differ and depend on the selected material. Next, consider the general requirements for different designs.

Rafters

For a roof like this, the rafter structures do not differ from the rest of the roof structures. The only exception is that almost all types of coating require a crate of plywood, whose weight should be taken into account at the time of strength calculation.

Rims

Virtually all types of soft roof, as already mentioned, require a crate of plywood. An exception is the roof of ondulin, the slope of which is more than 12. In this case, a crate with a small step is possible, which is specified for each specific material.

Roof pie

There are many more features. In the event that the room in which the roofing device is being heated is heated, then another layer of insulation is required, all materials of this type having a very high thermal conductivity.

It is almost always necessary to plan vapor barrier membranes in order to avoid damage to the crate and the formation of condensation. Some roll materials need to be stacked in several layers. For a top cover layer, a separate sheet type is used for multi-layer packing.

The article examined the most widely used and known types of soft roofing. The use of any of these materials makes it possible to obtain an aesthetically pleasing, modern roof, as well as reliable construction with a long service life.