Henry Walker Homes, Columbus Court

Columbus Court, by Henry Walker Homes

 When your building homes with views like this how can you best take advantage of them?  Henry Walker Homes has the answer, call in the experts and make every use possible of the space available with the design.  Here they have used a roof top deck to bring the city views into the home.  Imagine waking up, looking out your bedroom to this breath taking view of the capitol.  There are two steps to be taken when adding a walkable roof to the design - First - use a product that meets or exceeds building code for a walkable roof.  Second - Have a trained professional installer do the work.
In this case Duradek and Lone Star Builders Inc. who have a long history together again teamed up to provide an awesome waterproof walkable roof top deck that is bound to be a drawing feature of this home.  Doing a job like this has to be done right the first time and with ascetically pleasing details.

Flush drip edge

Builders and roofers have been doing membranes for a very long time.  Membranes are the best option when it comes to providing a cost effective roof that will last without any ongoing maintenance costs.  But, they have a tendency to be "ugly" the way they are installed.  This is where the folks at Duradek have stepped in and provided the correct details in order to make the walkable roof design a focal point of the home.  Here are but a few of them as they were being done on this Columbus Court home.  To the right you can see where the Lone Star installer has recessed the edge of the rooftop substrate.  By doing so they have made it so the drip edge will fit flush to the plywood, eliminating seeing the drip edge and aiding in water run off.

Notice the recessed area, lower right corner             

Since the membrane is going to be fully adhered to the plywood substrate preparation is key.  Any imperfections in the plywood such as knot holes are filled in.  The seams where the plywood meet are also addressed so there is no line showing thorough the finished product. In the lower right hand corner the trained installer has already measured out the location of the seam and has recessed the 3/4 inch over lap.  This will allow the bottom sheet to drop into the groove, the top sheet then will be aligned thus eliminating the "bump" often seen with over lapped seams.  Although the seam doesn't go away completely they are more difficult to locate and will not impede the water flow.

As you see on the left a Duradek installer uses a scrapper and rubs the membrane in by hand.  This provides them an opportunity to catch any debris that may have been trapped under the membrane as well as assuring the best bond possible. Here they are aligning the bottom sheet with the recessed seam.

Here installer is heat welding the recessed seams together.  Basically the two sheets are melted back as one. As you can see here, the recessed seams are not even noticeable.




Roof decks are fast becoming a highly sought after feature of any new home in the Utah market.  Virtually every location has a wonderful view and with the right design, like the one seen here will help to increase the builders sales and customer satisfaction.