Membrane roofing is a modern and, perhaps, the most advanced solution for installing a soft roof. The combination of reliability, increased resistance to climatic and atmospheric influences, elasticity, ability to preserve quality characteristics within a wide temperature range puts this material among the most advanced and high-quality.
The use of polymer membranes in the device soft roofs is already a guarantee of the quality of the coating and its durability. Repair of membrane roofing subject to the right technology Laying the coating is required much less frequently than with other materials. Its maintenance-free service life ranges from 30 to 60 years.
The biggest advantage of such roofs is considered to be resistance to extreme temperatures, which allows the membrane to be used in a wide variety of conditions.
What types of membranes are there?
The roofing membrane is a film polymer material. It is quite difficult to name its exact composition, since the constituent components are different manufacturers may not coincide. To obtain higher quality samples, it includes modified bitumen, fiberglass, various plasticizers, and more.
Today the market offers three ways to install such a roof:
– it is based on plasticized PVC, reinforced with polyester mesh for strength. Its plasticity is provided by volatile plasticizers, this is about 40% of the composition. by welding the sheets with hot air into a single sheet. The work is performed using special equipment. It is resistant to UV radiation and fire. However, bright colors fade somewhat over time, and the material is not resistant to oils, bituminous materials and solvents. One more negative factor is the release of volatile compounds into the atmosphere by the fabric.
TPO
– the base is made up of thermoplastic olefins, which are reinforced with either glass fiber or polyester (unreinforced products are also available). Due to the absence of volatile plasticizers in the composition, it is not so elastic, which makes installation difficult. It, as in the case of polyvinyl chloride, is performed by welding the sheets with hot air. The service life of the resulting coating reaches 60 years, it is characterized by great strength and reliability even with low temperatures. Installation can also be carried out in winter.
EPDM – the synthetic rubber underlying it is reinforced with polyester mesh for strength. The product is characterized by the highest elasticity and relatively low price. mainly on glue, and although it provides sufficient strength to the connection of the EPDM coating, the joining seams nevertheless remain “problematic” from the point of view of water leakage.
Advantages of membrane coatings
- Durability. The service life is about 60 years.
- High installation speed, since the coating is laid in one layer - work productivity is approximately 600 m 2 /shift.
- The ability to choose the width of the rolls allows you to cover roofs of various configurations, with the least number of joints.
- High-quality and uniform seam, which is ensured by hot air welding.
- High elasticity, frost resistance, UV resistance, operational and chemical resistance.
- High fire safety class - up to G-1.
- Exceptional lightness of the coating, which does not additionally overload the supporting structures.
- The technical characteristics of polymer membranes make it possible to install them all year round without changing technology.
With so many advantages, the only inconvenience of membrane coating is its price. They cost one and a half to two times more than their competitors.
Roofing methods
Depending on the roof structure, installation is performed in one of three ways.
Mechanical
– used for roofs with a large angle of inclination. Fastening is carried out using special fasteners, and the joints are hermetically sealed with special equipment.
Ballast– suitable for roofs with a slope of less than 10⁰. Ballast can be, say, crushed stone.
Adhesive– used for roofs of buildings located in areas of high wind loads. The canvas is simply glued to the plane.
How to repair a membrane coating
Although over the entire service life the membrane shrinks within 0.5%, however, this may be enough to cause stress and depressurization in seam joints. The coating can be significantly damaged when performing various types of work, installing additional equipment on the roof, or carelessly clearing the roof of snow and ice.
To repair seams or repair minor damage, it is, of course, not economically feasible to rent special equipment. Moreover, old membranes partially lose their elasticity, so they weld much worse. Cost increases welding work by 20-25%.
The ideal solution for such cases is modern EternaBond repair technologies, which involve a strong connection of homogeneous membranes. This technology is based on chemical stimulation of adhesion, which ensures the solidity of the adhesive joint, that is, not only tightness, but also exceptional strength of the seam. Externally, it is a rolled tape, on which an adhesive layer is applied on one side - it enters into an active reaction with the structure of the membrane.
The restored fragment can serve at any temperature for up to 30 years.
Fabrics without membranes - insulated jackets and vests.
Optimal damage repair small size(tears, burns, etc.) - sew some kind of chevron over the damage.
It is possible to attach a patch made from the original fabric from the repair kit. The patch can be glued on top, matching the rip-stop lines of the fabric of the product and the patch, using a transparent polyurethane glue(for example, Moment Crystal), but this is not the most reliable option, you need to remember this, and it’s quite difficult to do it accurately.
Membrane-coated fabrics or laminates - insulated jackets, pants and vests.
Possible options:
- from the piece of outer fabric included with the jacket, you need to cut out a small patch and glue it with transparent polyurethane glue (for example, Moment Crystal) from the inside, probably for this you will have to slightly enlarge the original hole so that you can insert the patch inside. Accordingly, the patch needs to be cut taking into account the increase in the size of the hole. It is permissible to glue the patch from the outside; to do this, it is necessary to round the corners of the patch, align the rip-stop lines of the fabric of the product and the patch when gluing, and ensure uniform gluing along the contour to reduce the likelihood of the edges of the patch falling behind;
- in shops sewing accessories decorative "chevrons" printed on the reverse side are sold adhesive composition, they are glued with an iron. Glue the chevron, respectively, from the outside over the gap;
- there (in sewing accessories stores) you can find a film - reflective or regular, also with an adhesive composition applied, it can be glued both from the inside and outside;
- self-adhesive patches (for example, McNett Tenacious Precut Patches, or Gore-Tex fabric repair kit and the like). As a rule, they work well, but you will have to contrive to seal the tear from the inside, since the fabric of the product and the patch will almost certainly have a different texture.
Softshells with inner fleece layer.
If you seal the damage from the inside, the area of the glued patch will be too hard due to the inner fleece layer; on the outside, the appearance of the product will change, since original fabric Cannot be used on a patch due to its thickness. Acceptable from the point of view of maintaining a relatively presentable appearance It may be an option to sew or glue a chevron over the damage.
Membrane fabrics for storm jackets and pants.
Cut out small, neat patches with rounded corners from the included scrap and stick to the damaged areas with transparent polyurethane glue (Moment Crystal, for example). You can try to match the direction of the ripstop cells if there is one on the fabric. Ensure uniform gluing along the contour to reduce the likelihood of the edges of the patch coming off. For more reliable gluing, we recommend holding the patch in a clamp between two boards (or, if in the area of the patches there are not just fabric, but seams, zippers, etc., it’s worth adding plates of something like porous rubber). The harder you clamp, the better... however, this is written in the instructions on the glue tube.
Before I saw this, I thought that these were magic trousers that did not tear, and also did not burn in fire and did not sink in water;) But my eldest hung on the fence.....
1. For repairs you will need: “Moment” rubber glue (or other universal glue), scissors, any plastic bag, toothpicks
2. The main task is to bring the torn edges of the membrane fabric as close as possible to each other, but not overlapping. To do this, you need a layer of polyethylene, which we place BETWEEN the membrane and a thin fabric lining (in my case it remained intact). Accordingly, I essentially have two cuts, so I cut out two strips from a plastic bag much wider and slightly longer than the cut. First, we lay down one strip and, using a toothpick (or something thin), spread the polyethylene and the edges of the membrane with glue. We bring the edges together butt to butt. (quite labor-intensive, because the glue sticks to your fingers and dries quickly). We repeat the same operation with another incision. 
3. Glue the corner of the cuts together last. There are two difficulties in this operation: to have time to bring the edges of the fabric together before the glue begins to grab them tightly (if you don’t have time, take out a strip of polyethylene, cut out a new one and start all over again) and not to stain the pants with glue around the cut (then it doesn’t rub off well)
The result of the repair is this: 
PS: the strength was tested on the slide on the same day - beyond praise;)
PS2: They say that there are magic patches for the membrane and such patches and even repair kits are sold in magic stores “for hunters and fishermen.” However, I didn’t see it.
MK Gluing seams on the membrane.
Details in the source:
From the author:
On a membrane raincoat fabric, seams and punctures from needles must be sealed, otherwise water will vigorously seep through the holes, steam will actively turn into ice in these places, and so on, and the result will not be a magic membrane, but a very expensive, but quite ordinary raincoat fabric.
For the same reason, by the way, you should not chip parts with pins - so that there are no holes left. You can use pins either on those parts where the functionality of the membrane is not needed (pocket flaps, cuffs), or by chopping off those parts of the allowances that remain on the wrong side or are even cut off later.
The seams on the membrane can be sealed in many ways. Here are the main ones:
First way. Coat with glue. Any polyurethane glue that remains elastic after drying is suitable; you must first check that the glue does not dissolve the membrane coating. The technology is simple - coat it with glue, dries, coat it again, dries again, ready. I used this method to glue the seams holding decorative elements on the legs. In the distant 90s, this method was widely used even in large industries.
Second way.
Using a special tape for gluing seams. In fact, the magic of this ribbon is greatly exaggerated, perhaps because it is not sold in all shops, so it has acquired a haze of some mystery. This ribbon is a kind of tape with hot-melt adhesive that melts when high temperatures. That is, on one side it sticks and seems to melt into the raincoat fabric, but on the other it remains a film.
To work you will need an iron (set it to two points, or “synthetic”), wooden block a couple of mm wider than the ribbons, ribbon, scissors and product.
We grind the seam, adjust it, etc., as planned according to the model, or we simply cut off the allowances to the width so that it is enough to cover with a ribbon, and simply bend them together in one direction (do not make seams pressed on the membrane).
We place the product on the block so that the iron does not touch the raincoat fabric where it is not needed. We place the ribbon on the seam with the sticky side down (it’s not visible to the eye - we determine it experimentally on the trim), cover it with wax paper on top, press for a few seconds, remove the iron and paper - a piece of the seam is ready. We move the product to make it more convenient to lay the next piece of seam, glue it, and move on. And so on along the entire seam. You don’t need to move the iron back and forth, you need to press it, hold it, remove it, you can press it again or at a different angle if suddenly something doesn’t stick. If you move the iron, you can move everything.
Method three.
We cut ribbons from the same fabric with a membrane, put the ribbon on the seam, membrane to membrane, and glue two layers of fabric through the paper using an iron. The membrane melts at a moderate temperature, and the two membranes will fuse quite tightly.
Method four
Tested by our ancestors. We cut strips from something waterproof, either from the same membrane or from PE film, and carefully glue them with glue to all the seams. This method does not require an iron. They say that once upon a time, a very, very long time ago, hermetic bags were made using this method, and the technology works quite well, only it is painstaking.