EPDM Rubber Roofing in Queens, NY

EPDM is the rubber roof. When a homeowner in Queens calls me about a "rubber roof", nine times out of ten this is what's up there: a sheet of black synthetic rubber covering the flat rear roof of a rowhouse, an extension, a porch or a garage. I'm Stavros Latos, I own REVMA Roofing in Bayside, and I'll tell you straight whether your rubber roof needs replacing or just needs the drainage fixed.

What an EPDM Rubber Roof Is, in Plain Words

EPDM stands for ethylene propylene diene monomer, which nobody needs to remember. What matters is that it's a single sheet of rubber membrane, usually black, that comes in big wide rolls, so a typical rowhouse rear roof has very few seams. It stays flexible in the cold, so our freeze and thaw winters don't crack it the way they crack old tar, and when it does get a cut or a puncture it's easy to patch.

It's been on New York flat roofs for decades, so every roofer knows it. The catch is that because everybody knows it, everybody thinks they can install it, and a rubber roof is only as good as its seams, its edges and the way it meets the walls.

How We Install an EPDM Rubber Roof in Queens

The only way to do a roof is to rip it and do it from scratch, and a flat roof is no different. On a rubber roof we go in this order:

• Tear-off to the deck. On a lot of rowhouses we find rubber on top of roll roofing on top of tar. It all comes off, because you can't fix drainage on a deck you can't see.
• Deck repair. Three to five sheets of plywood are included. If we find more rot than that, I show you the pictures before anything else gets charged.
• Drainage first. Tapered insulation or crickets where the roof needs them, so water runs to the drain or scupper instead of sitting in the middle.
• Insulation and cover board so the rubber sits on a flat, solid base.
• The membrane. Fully adhered, with the seams taped and rolled so they stay closed.
• Parapet and party-wall flashing. The rubber runs up the wall and gets capped and terminated so water can't get behind it.
• Drains, scuppers, vents and hatches flashed one at a time, and new drain bodies where the old ones are rusted out.
• Metal edge or coping to finish the perimeter, then cleanup and a magnet sweep.

When a Rubber Roof Is the Right Pick, and When It Isn't

EPDM makes sense when you want a proven roof that's easy to repair down the road, when the roof doesn't get a lot of foot traffic, and when you're not worried about the top floor running hot in the summer. Black rubber soaks up the sun, so if your bedroom is right under that roof and it's an oven in July, I'll probably point you to TPO, which is white and reflects the heat.

If you're going to walk on the roof a lot, say there's an AC condenser up there that gets serviced every year or you want to put chairs out, then modified bitumen is tougher underfoot. At the end of the day, I recommend the system that fits your roof and how you use it, not what I happen to have in the truck. The full side-by-side is on our flat roofing page.

Signs Your EPDM Roof Needs Replacing

Rubber roofs usually tell you before they fail. Look for seams lifting or peeling back at the edges, the rubber pulling away from the parapet wall, shrinking that stretches the membrane tight at the corners, blisters and soft spots under your feet, water ponding in the same spot two days after a rain, and a ceiling stain that keeps getting bigger.

Let's say the seams are lifting in two or three places and you've had it patched twice. Patching a third time isn't going to fix the reason the seams are opening, which is usually water sitting on them. That's when it's a replacement, and the drainage gets fixed with it.

What an EPDM Roof Costs in Queens

Flat roofs run about $900 to $1,400 a square installed in Queens, and a typical rowhouse rear roof of 8 to 12 squares comes in around $8,000 to $16,000. Where your rubber roof lands in that range depends on how many layers come off, how much plywood is rotten, whether we need tapered insulation to move the water, and how much parapet and drain work there is.

I give you one written price after I've been on the roof, and with no big-company overhead that price usually comes in 25 to 35% less than the big companies for the same system. If you have another quote in writing for the same roofing system, show it to me and I'll match it. For how flat roofs compare to pitched roofs, read how much a new roof costs in Queens.

Rubber Roofs on Attached Homes in NYC

Most of the rubber roofs I see in Queens and the Bronx sit on attached or semi-attached houses, so your roof runs straight into your neighbor's. We tie the membrane in at the party wall and flash it so the joint can't leak into either house, and we let the neighbor know before we start. Access is usually through the house or over the front, so we plan the protection and the debris route before I write the price.

If any part of the job is torch-applied, like a base sheet at a wall, FDNY requires a Certificate of Fitness holder on site. A fully adhered rubber roof is mostly cold work, which is one of the reasons people pick it for tight rowhouse roofs.

Where We Install EPDM Rubber Roofs

We're based in Bayside and we work Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Close to home that means Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Whitestone, Flushing and Fresh Meadows, and further in Astoria, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills and Jamaica.

EPDM Rubber Roof Questions