Know Any Good Roofers in Costa Rica

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  • #186972
    Sita
    Member

    I recently bought an old tico style house which I want to renovate. It has a variety of roofs which need readjustment or replacing. Anyone have any information that might help re roofers or suppliers or about skylight windows
    Thanks

    #186973
    DavidCMurray
    Participant

    We’ve built two new houses here and we’ve had trouble with roof leaks on both of them. What I can tell you is that putting on a decent roof isn’t just a matter of slapping it on. Trust me.

    You haven’t said anything about what type of roofing is on your house at present or what your plans are. Will you try to rehab what’s there or will you be replacing it? If you’re going to replace it, with what?

    And where are you located?

    #186974
    sprite
    Member

    Yours is the third post I have read about problems with leaky roof construction. Are both your roofs metal and are both 6 degrees or more at angle? Lots of rain in this little country and most roofs I see are metal with the newer ones having metal framework as well.

    #186975
    Sita
    Member

    The main problem is ugly gutters & drainpipes which need hiding when creating an indoor garden, more than a leakage problem
    The visible roofs are false tile & the rest zinc. I am currently looking for ideas
    I live in Heredia

    #186976
    DavidCMurray
    Participant

    The problems we’ve had with our roofs have arisen from improper installation. Both are corregated sheet metal. When installing corregated roofing, each adjoining sheet should overlap the one next to it by two corregations, not just by one. And there should be a heavy bead of silicone caulk between the two overlapping layers.

    The other problem we’ve had has come from the “botagua” which is a bent piece of sheet metal that overlaps the four edges of the roof and forms the fascia on the vertical face of the roof and which overlaps the corregated metal roofing on top. Our botagua did not extend far enough over the roofing, so when the wind blew, water was blown up under the botagua, and under the roof sheeting. This problem was resolved by adding a twelve-inch wide sheet of metal slid about two inches up under the lower edge of the botagua, to increase the overlap over the sheet roofing.

    Once the weather dries, I’m going up on the roof and will seal every seam with a heavy layer of silicone caulk. Once that’s dry, I’ll coat every seam with two coats of Glidden Aqua-Seal waterproofer which is used to waterproof all sorts of architectural materials (concrete, wood, metal, etc). This stuff has the consistency of sour cream and has worked well on our guest house roof where we had the same problems.

    And then we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

    Sita, if it’s early enough in the construction process, you should be able to have your builder route drain pipes through the cores in the concrete blocks.

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