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Emergency
24/7 Emergency Flat Roof Repair in Toronto
Active leak, storm damage or a failed seam. Call any hour and we will get the water stopped and the building protected, then come back and fix the cause properly.
What you get from Flat Roofs Toronto
24/7, Every Day of the Year
Nights, weekends and statutory holidays included.
Water Stopped First
Containment before diagnosis, always.
Residential & Commercial
Houses, plazas, warehouses and condos.
Permanent Repair to Follow
The temporary fix is never the whole job.
What to Do in the First Ten Minutes
If water is coming through a ceiling right now, the priority is not diagnosing the roof. It is limiting what the water damages on its way through the building. Move what you can out from under it. Put a container down. If the ceiling is bulging, the safest move is often to pierce it deliberately at the lowest point with something long, standing to one side, so the water drains in one controlled place instead of bringing a section of ceiling down at once. Kill the power to any circuit near the water before you go anywhere near it.
Then call us on (647) 333-3528. Tell us where the water is showing inside, what the weather has been doing, and whether the building is occupied. That tells us what to bring.
What we will not do is climb onto a roof in an active electrical storm or a high wind, and neither should you. Nothing on a roof is worth that. If conditions make the roof genuinely unsafe, we work the interior containment first and get on the membrane the moment it is safe to do so.
Before we arrive
- Move belongings and stock out of the water path
- Contain the drip with buckets and sheeting
- Relieve a bulging ceiling at its lowest point
- Switch off electrical circuits near the water
- Photograph everything for your insurer
- Stay off the roof, especially in wind or lightning
- Call us at (647) 333-3528
What Counts as a Flat Roof Emergency
If any of these are happening, do not wait for a scheduled appointment.
- Water actively coming through a ceiling or light fitting
- A ceiling that is sagging, bulging or dripping steadily
- Membrane torn, lifted or blown back by high wind
- A split or open seam with water running into it
- Storm damage, impact damage or a fallen branch on the deck
- A blocked or collapsed drain with water rising on the roof
- Parapet or flashing failure letting water into a wall
- Any leak over electrical equipment, stock or a production floor
Where Flat Roofs Actually Fail
After enough years on Toronto roofs, the pattern is very consistent. Membranes in the middle of a field rarely fail on their own. Water gets in where the roof stops being a flat sheet and has to do something more complicated.
Seams and laps
Any joint between two pieces of membrane is a candidate. Torch-applied laps that were not fully bonded, welded seams that were run cold or too fast, adhesive laps contaminated with dust on the day. They often hold for years and then open under thermal movement.
Flashing and terminations
Where the roof turns up a parapet, a wall, a chimney or a curb, the membrane has to be terminated and held. That termination is exposed, it takes the most thermal movement on the roof, and it is where the largest share of leaks originate. Parapets in particular are brutal: they get weather on both faces and the wall behind them is usually old brick.
Penetrations
Vent stacks, drains, conduit, equipment supports and anything else poking through. Each one needs its own detail, and each one is a place where somebody once decided a bead of sealant would be quicker than a proper flashing.
Drainage
A blocked drain or scupper turns a roof into a pond, and a pond finds every weak point at once while adding real structural load. Ponding water also degrades most membranes far faster than water that runs off. A great many so-called membrane failures are drainage failures with a membrane symptom.
Blisters and trapped moisture
Moisture trapped between layers expands in the sun and lifts the membrane off what it is bonded to. The blister itself is not the leak. It is the warning that the bond has already gone, and the split that follows is what lets the water in.
Which system is up there changes the repair
A torched lap, a hot-air welded seam and an adhered rubber joint are three different repairs needing three different sets of materials on the truck, which is why we ask what the roof is before we set off. Our flat roofing systems guide sets out all six, and everything Flat Roofs Toronto does is on the home page.
How an Emergency Call Runs
Four steps. The first one happens before we have any idea what caused it.
1
Stop the Water
Containment and a temporary weathertight cover over the failure so nothing more gets into the building.
2
Clear and Drain
Standing water pulled off the roof and blocked drains and scuppers opened, so the load and the pressure come off.
3
Trace the Source
Water travels along joists and finds a light fitting metres from where it entered. We trace it back to the actual point of entry.
4
Permanent Repair
Once the roof is dry and safe, the real repair goes in and we tell you honestly whether the rest of the roof is close behind it.
Repairs We Have Made on Real Roofs
Parapet and detail repairs photographed on Toronto job sites.
Lumbered Slope Build and Two-Ply System, Toronto
A lumbered slope framed over a flat roof deck to move water toward the drains, with a two-ply system installed over it.
Flat Roof Application Detail, Toronto
A detail from a flat roof membrane application, showing the finished surface of the system.
Attic Inspection and Blown-In Insulation, Toronto
Inspection of a flat roof attic space followed by blown-in insulation. The cavity is checked before any insulation is added.
What an Emergency Repair Costs
Emergency work is priced on what it takes to make the building safe and dry, and we will always tell you the number before we do anything beyond immediate containment. Small repairs can start at a few hundred dollars. What moves it from there is straightforward.
- Time of call. Getting a crew and materials to a roof at two in the morning in February costs more than the same work on a Tuesday afternoon.
- Access. A rear house roof reached by ladder is a different mobilisation to a six-storey commercial building needing a hoist or a lift.
- Extent of the failure. A single split seam is a contained repair. Twenty feet of failed parapet flashing is a different piece of work.
- Temporary versus permanent. Stopping the water in bad weather and returning to do the permanent repair in dry conditions is two visits, and we will say so up front.
- Deck damage. If water has been getting in for a while, the sheathing underneath is often gone and has to be replaced before anything is sealed over it.
- Whether the roof is worth repairing. Sometimes the honest answer is that a repair is money into a roof with a year left. We will tell you that rather than take the work.
We are not going to pretend an emergency call-out is the same price as scheduled work. What we will do is tell you the number before we start, and tell you honestly whether you are looking at a repair or a replacement.
Emergency Flat Roof Repair Questions
What people ask when they call us at an unreasonable hour.
Are you really available 24/7?
Yes. Call (647) 333-3528 at any hour, on any day of the year, including weekends and statutory holidays. Emergency flat roof repair across Toronto and the GTA is a service we run around the clock, because water moving through a building does not wait for business hours.
Can you repair a roof in the rain?
We can stop the water and we can make it weathertight in the rain. What we usually cannot do in the rain is the permanent repair, because most roofing materials need a dry, clean surface to bond to properly. Doing a permanent repair onto a wet substrate is how you end up back on the same roof next month. So the honest answer is two visits: stop it now, fix it properly when it is dry.
Should I get on the roof myself?
Please do not, especially in wind, rain, snow or darkness. A wet low-slope membrane is far more slippery than it looks, ponded water hides trip hazards and soft spots, and old skylights and rotten deck sections will not hold a person. Contain the water inside the building and let us handle the roof.
The leak inside is nowhere near where I think the roof is damaged. Why?
Because water runs. It gets through the membrane at one point, travels along the top of the deck or along a joist until it meets an obstruction, and then drops. It will happily emerge several metres from where it entered, and it will nearly always come out at a light fitting or a seam in the drywall. Tracing it back to the actual entry point is a large part of the job.
Will my insurance cover this?
That is between you and your insurer and we cannot answer it for you, but we can help you make the claim easier. Photograph everything before you move it, keep the damaged materials if you safely can, and we will document what we find on the roof and what we did about it. Sudden storm damage and gradual wear are usually treated very differently by policies.
Do I need a whole new roof or just a repair?
It depends entirely on whether this is a local failure on a sound roof or one more symptom of an assembly that is finished. We will tell you which one it is after we have had the roof open, and we will show you photographs rather than asking you to take our word for it. If it is the second one, our flat roof replacement page covers what that involves.
Areas We Cover
Toronto and out through the GTA. Open the plan to find your area, or call and ask about somewhere we have not named.
Select a region on the plan
Free, No Obligation
Request a Free Quote
Tell us what the roof is doing and we will come and look at it. No charge, and no obligation to proceed.
Call Us
Office Hours
Open 7 days a week: 7:00am to 11:30pm
Emergencies
The line above is answered 24/7 for anything that cannot wait, including weekends and statutory holidays.
Related Flat Roofing Services
Three more places our crews spend their time. Every one of them touches the same roof.
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Emergency Flat Roof Repair Reviews
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24/7 Emergency Line
Water Coming In Right Now?
Call us. We run 24/7 emergency flat roof repair across Toronto and the GTA, and the first job is always stopping the water.