Occupied buildings
Roof Works Over a Building That Cannot Stop Trading
The first question is rarely about the covering itself. It is what the work does to the operation underneath: which aisles come out of use, whether the shift can run, what happens if it rains on a day the roof is open. Those answers are a planning exercise, and they are settled before anybody is booked rather than discovered together.
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The short answer: Work over a trading building is phased so that only one section is ever open, each section is closed watertight before the crew leaves, and the specification avoids hot works wherever a cold-applied system will do the job. The programme is written around the operation, not the other way round.
Sequencing
The roof is divided before it is touched
A roof over a working building is not one area with a start and an end date. It is broken into sections that can each be opened, worked and closed inside a single working period, ordered to suit the business rather than the scaffold. Which goes first is a commercial decision as much as a technical one, so the survey produces the order and the reasoning behind it, in time for the people who live with it to argue.
The rule
Watertight at the end of every shift
The commitment that matters on an operating site is not the finish date. It is that the building is weathertight when the crew goes home, every day, whatever state the wider job is in. A section is opened only if it can be closed again, and weather that would prevent that is a reason not to open it.
That one rule decides how big a section can be, how many run at once, and what is left alone when the forecast turns.
Fire
Removing the permit question instead of managing it
Hot works are what a site manager and an insurer both look at hardest, with reason: a naked flame over a stocked building is a risk somebody has to own. A cold-applied liquid system, HYDRONYLON in our case, goes on without flame or heat at all, so where it suits the roof it removes the permit and the fire watch rather than wrapping controls around them. Where a torch-applied build-up is the better roof, it is used only where an assessment of what is nearby allows, and the details near anything that could catch are closed cold. How the liquid system is specified and where torch-on felt still wins are both set out on their own pages.
Site
Access, deliveries and what sits underneath
Materials and platforms arrive against your hours, not ours. Where a platform would block a bay that must stay clear it stands somewhere worse for us, with the price reflecting the real position.
What sits below is a planning input rather than a detail: stock that cannot be covered, a machine that cannot move and a line that cannot stop each change the order of work.
Before anybody arrives
The pack, and what we need back from you
Nothing starts without the documents your site requires: a method statement and risk assessment written for this building, insurance evidence, the access plan and who is attending.
Asbestos belongs in that exchange too, and no permit alters it. Where the building’s register records it anywhere on the roof, that area sits outside anything we quote or touch. The material itself belongs to a specialist firm carrying the training and controls that work demands, and nobody here offers a view on what a given sheet is made of.
Scope
What we do not take on
- Moving your stock or plant. Clearing the floor under a section, and isolating whatever is mounted up there, is yours to arrange. We say what has to be clear and when, in writing, early.
- Out-of-hours attendance as a standing service. Work is programmed around your hours where the site needs it, agreed in the quotation. That is not a call-out arrangement.
- Anything on cement sheeting. No repair, no covering, no fixing, and no view on what it contains.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Does the building have to close while the roof is done?
Almost never, and designing it so it does not is most of the planning. The roof is divided into sections that can each be opened and closed inside one working period, so only the part in hand is ever exposed.
What happens to the area directly underneath?
It is agreed before anything starts. Where stock, machinery or a working aisle sits below, either it moves for that section or the section moves in the programme. That is a planning conversation, because the answer sometimes reorders the whole job.
Can the work be done without hot works?
On most of it, yes, and that is often the reason to specify it that way. A cold-applied liquid system goes on without flame or heat, which removes the permit, the fire watch and the insurer’s conditions rather than managing them. Torch-applied work is used only where an assessment allows it.
What paperwork do you provide before anyone goes on site?
A method statement and risk assessment written for your building rather than a generic one, insurance evidence, the access plan and who will be attending. Any induction, permit system or approval process gets completed in advance rather than at the gate.
What do you need from us to plan it properly?
Operating hours and the quiet times, the way up to the roof and where a platform can stand, what sits under each part of it, your permit and induction requirements, and the building’s asbestos register. Those five let us write a programme that survives contact with a working site.
A roof that needs work over a building that cannot stop?
Tell us what the site does, when it is quietest and what sits under the roof. That is where the programme starts.
We need a little more before we can send that: a name, the postcode of the roof, what is happening with it, and either a phone number or an email address.
Sorry, that did not send. What you wrote is still here, so press send again when you have a signal. If it will not go, ring 07593 196505 or email office@pluvian.uk.
That has come through a few times already. If the first one did not arrive, ring us instead or email office@pluvian.uk and we will pick it up from there.
Coming out and pricing the work is free; a written condition survey carries a fee, agreed before the visit and taken off the price of the work if you go ahead.