sarnafil rubber roofing

[selfbuildaberdeen]

Hi folks, We have a large flat roof as part of our design and spec from the architect is for sarnafil rubber.

 

Does anyone have any experience of this product, good or bad to share?

How it performs over time, problems with installation, how it compares to similar products etc

 

Thanks

[lizzie]

Architects always spec Sarnafil...think they are on commission! Ours specced it but we went for Fatra, similar product all the BBA certs and the guarantees. Not much difference on price and both perform well....I believe terminal 5 at Heathrow has Fatra roof.

[selfbuildaberdeen]

Hi lizzie thank you very much,

what made you choose one over the other then as sounds like you didn't find much difference?

 

Is yours over a larger area and how has it held up over time?

 

[lizzie]

13 minutes ago, selfbuildaberdeen said:

Hi lizzie thank you very much,

what made you choose one over the other then as sounds like you didn't find much difference?

 

Is yours over a larger area and how has it held up over time?

 

252sq metres plus the separate garage!

 

We asked advice from my bro in law who is a specialist commercial roofing contractor.....he fits both brands.  His preferred product was Fatra, he gave us reasons at the time but I cant recall the detail.  He did not fit the roof for us (he is not local to us and in any event was very busy on large commercial jobs) just gave us his professional opinion.

 

Its been on about 18 months and (keeping everything crossed!) no problems so far.  We went for hidden gutters and they are made with the membrane, there are big drains into the 2 downpipes we have, that amount of roof has a lot of water flow to drain. some pics of work in progress.

 

We did have a smaller commercial roof done by bro in law in this product about 10 years ago and its never given any trouble.

[vivienz]

We have sarnafil on our garage roof, a section of flat roof over the stairwell and the parapets around the balconies.  I can't speak for its longevity as it was only completed at the back end of last year.  On the face of it, it looks very similar to @lizzie's.

 

The main problem I'm having with it at the moment is connecting the rainwater outlets that the contractor installed into gutters, as the outlets are all 90mm and don't fit into any standard size guttering/downpipe available over here.  The contractor was singularly useless and said that he could supply elbows but of the same diameter, and these would need to feed into hoppers, which we don't want.  Anyhow, I think I've found a solution from a French supplier.

 

The installation of the roof was okay, apart from the vagaries of the installers not coming when they were supposed to, etc. but in general the standard of the work is fine.

[mvincentd]

I have a sarnafil of 130sqm and a Bauder of 90sqm.

The sarnafil was a necessity because it had to bond onto a sika wall membrane.

The Bauder is cheaper.

Their warranties are comparable and the finished results are comparable.

I cannot comment on their durability given mine are only a year old.

The roofers preferred the Bauder product to work with. They particularly feel their vcl is superior.

My superficial judgement of the materials was that the bauder stuff was better, but what do I know.

The bauder inspection was more thorough.

The sarnafil required an additional root protection barrier...the bauder didn't (although we didnt green it in the end).

I believe any problems will lie with workmanship, not materials.

We've had one problem, with the sarnafil, definitely a workmanship issue...whether that has any correlation with the roofers finding bauder easier to work with, I doubt.

Shop around, sarnafil write a spec for the job but despite this I still got quotes from their approved installers that varied from £38k to £56k for the exact same job.

[lizzie]

@vivienz I had my swan necks elbows downpipes etc made to order at  Guttercrest, they are near Telford,  We dont have hoppers all our drainage is hidden bar the downpipe. We needed to take 125 round outlets from roof down into 100 square downpipes into round 100drain.  They made everything including the adaptors. Not expensive either.

Edited May 28, 2019 by lizzie

[PeterW]

18 minutes ago, vivienz said:

The main problem I'm having with it at the moment is connecting the rainwater outlets that the contractor installed into gutters, as the outlets are all 90mm and don't fit into any standard size guttering/downpipe available over here. 

 

Guttering Expert do 90mm zinc downpipes and also in anthracite finish 

[selfbuildaberdeen]

On 28/05/2019 at 23:16, mvincentd said:

I have a sarnafil of 130sqm and a Bauder of 90sqm.

The sarnafil was a necessity because it had to bond onto a sika wall membrane.

The Bauder is cheaper.

Their warranties are comparable and the finished results are comparable.

I cannot comment on their durability given mine are only a year old.

The roofers preferred the Bauder product to work with. They particularly feel their vcl is superior.

My superficial judgement of the materials was that the bauder stuff was better, but what do I know.

The bauder inspection was more thorough.

The sarnafil required an additional root protection barrier...the bauder didn't (although we didnt green it in the end).

I believe any problems will lie with workmanship, not materials.

We've had one problem, with the sarnafil, definitely a workmanship issue...whether that has any correlation with the roofers finding bauder easier to work with, I doubt.

Shop around, sarnafil write a spec for the job but despite this I still got quotes from their approved installers that varied from £38k to £56k for the exact same job.

Perfect thank you so very much!