Can You Repair Roof Sarking? (Read This First)

Sometimes, using roof tiles to protect your house from dust, rain, or excessive moisture is insufficient. To this end, you need to install another protective membrane to keep your roof safe.

However, what happens when this protective membrane develops an issue and begins to fail?

You can repair roof sarking if the tear on the sarking is very minimal. However, if the tear is extensive, you need to replace the torn roof sarking as soon as possible. If you do not consider this, there is a high possibility for harsh weather conditions to damage your roof tiles.

What Is Roof Sarking?

Roof sarking is also known as the protective second skin of a roof. The roof sarking serves as a strong and pliable membrane that protects the home from harsh weather conditions such as heavy downpours and excessive dust.

You install the roof sarking under the roof tiles or metal tiles. A reflective foil layer makes up the roof sarking. It can be on one side of the roof sarking or the two sides of the roof sarking.

Roof sarking is necessary as it prevents your roof from experiencing many casualties. These casualties include:

#1. Condensation:

Since any layer underneath them unprotects the roof tiles, they could suffer condensation, leading to the roof’s upper layers rusting.

#2. Prevention of Thermal Insulation:

Thermal insulation reduces heat transfer between the roof surfaces. Not having roof sarking affects your roof’s thermal insulation, as these foils reduce the passage of heat between the roof tiles.

Thus, it would be best if you had a roof sarking to improve the thermal performance of your roof.

Note: While there are several types of roof insulations, you can only use foil material for roof sarking.

#3. Overheating of the House:

Roof sarking reflects radiant heat from the sun. Thus, there will be nothing to protect the house from the full blast of sunlight without roof sarking.

To this end, you can see that there are a lot of benefits of roof sarking. 

How Do You Fix Torn Roof Sarking?

It would be best if you had a special tape to be able to repair a torn roof sarking. Types of these types are listed below, alongside their pros and cons.

This way, you can compare the various tapes and decide from the comparison.

#1. Enviroseal SLS Plain Tape

#1. Features

• The tape is single-sided.
• The tape comprises a high initial grab and a flexible carrier.
• It is suitable for plastics, wood, glass, metal, paperboard, aluminum foils, coated timber, and kraft papers.

#2. Pros

• This tape is free of solvents and similar solutions, including chlorine and formaldehyde.
• The SLS plain tape allows for excellent thermal expansion.
• THE ELASTICITY OF the SLS plain tape works with the roof’s limited building movement.
• The SLS plain tape lasts considerably long as it has excellent aging resistance. 
• The SLS plain tape is resistant to plasticizer migration.

#2. Enviroseal Duo Tape

#1. Features

• The Duo tape is double-sized.
• The duo tape comprises a high initial grab and flexible carrier.

#2. Pros

• The Duo tape is suitable for positioning between construction wraps and building frames.
• The duo tape can serve as a temporary attachment method between vapor-permeable construction wraps and building frames.

#3. Cons

• The duo tape is subject to degradation by the wind.
• The duo tape is not suitable as a permanent attachment method. 
• It would be best to replace the duo tape with cladding fasteners as time goes on. 

#3. Enviroseal SLS Flexi Tape

#1. Features

• The tape is highly elastic.
• The tape has a creped stretchable carrier.
• The tape comprises a slit release liner which compensates for interior and exterior sealing. It could be either air or watertight sealing.
• The tape is suitable with oriented strand boards, particle boards, painted timber, wood, glass, metal, kraft papers, coated timber, paperboard, etc.

#2. Pros

• The Flexi tape is water-resistant, which will assist in preventing condensation and rusting on the roof tiles.
• The Flexi tape is resistant to plasticizer migration. 
• The Flexi tape is free of solvents and other solutions such as chlorine and formaldehyde. 
• The tape is adjustable to seal both watertight and wind-tight penetrations. Pre-folding the tape along the slit liner allows you to adjust the tape to seal around penetrations of any sort.

#3. Cons

• The Flexi tape is gray, which implies that it can be visible through some open facade points.

#4. Enviroseal Black Label Tape

#1. Features

• The tape is single-sided.
• Use the tape with vapor-permeable construction membranes.

#2. Pros

• The initial grab is very dependable, as it even functions excellently in places with high humidity. 
• The tape is very effective as a repair tape.
• The tape can accommodate vapor-permeable membranes, which means it does not need to be replaced after a while. 

Note that, many times, the tear on your roof sarking may be too great, and it needs a complete replacement. You need to remove the old sarking and purchase a new sarking.

To install a roof sarking with existing a tiled roof, you need to take the following steps:

#5. Ensure You Purchase High-quality Roof Sarking Material

If you do not purchase a high-quality foil to serve as your roof sarking material, your roof sarking will tear sooner than expected. Ensure you get your material from a trusted dealer.

#6. Measure and Obtain The Dimensions of Your Roof

There are several manual mathematical processes you can take to obtain the dimensions of your roof. However, you need to purchase a roofing calculator to get accurate results. Click here to purchase a roofing calculator. 

#7. Remove The Ridge Capping of The Roof

You can locate the ridge capping at the intersection between the two roof areas. It is a triangular-shaped tile, and you fix this capping into the roof through bedding and pointing. Ridge caps serve as a vital element of the roof.

Since the roof areas connect at the ridge capping, you need to carefully remove the ridge capping before disassembling the other roof parts.

#8. Remove The Clips From The Roof

Roof clips are metal components mostly used to attach metal panels. They are anchored to a house’s substrate and work better with existing metal roofs. 

#9. Remove The Roof Battens

Have you ever wondered where roofing tiles and shingles are fixed? The roof battens serve as the fixing point for these materials.

Therefore, you need to remove the roof battens to get these materials out successfully.

#10. Install The New Roofing Sarking Sheets

This step is the most crucial step of the entire process. While installing the new sarking sheets, do not damage them.

If you accidentally damage them, you need to get new sheets as a damaged sheet won’t last long.

#11. Reassemble Every Dismantled Roof Component

This step ensures that you put every roofing material back in its position, ensuring that you don’t damage them. As soon as you complete this step, you successfully fix your roof sarking.

How much Does It Cost to Repair Roof Sarking?

There is no specific cost of repairing roof sarking. The cost of repairing your roof sarking depends on what materials you intend to get, depending on how damaged your roof sarking is.

If the tear is minor, you would only need to purchase a roofing tape which costs about three to eight dollars, depending on the brand you are getting.

If you need to replace the roof sarking entirely, you need to budget about $400. The cost of a new roof sarking depends on its thermal rating.

It ranges from two dollars to three dollars per square meter.

Note that the roof sarking replacement costs will be much higher than just repairing the torn sarking. Therefore, you should replace the sarking completely at once to avoid more costs in the future.

Conclusion 

You must always employ roof sarkings to provide an extra layer of protection against harsh weather conditions. Nonetheless, if you discover that your roof sarking is faulty, repair or replace it immediately.

If you waste any time, it could be detrimental to your roof tiles and house.