Older Parow Roofs, Restored Before They Let You Down

Parow grew up along Voortrekker Road between the 1930s and 1960s, and in Parow Valley, Parow North and Parow East plenty of houses still have their original roofs, or at least parts of them. Add decades of back rooms, lean-to extensions and parapet walls built at different times, and you get roofs with a little of everything: corrugated iron, old tiles and flat sections that hold water.

For Parow homeowners and landlords, roof painting tends to involve more repairs than paint at first. NPC inspects, repairs and then cleans and spray-coats tiled and metal roofs on homes, older blocks of flats and the retail and commercial buildings along the main road.

Lean-to roofs, parapets and tired iron

The roofs that cause the most trouble in Parow are rarely the main ones. Low-pitch lean-to roofs over kitchens and back rooms often have too little fall, so water sits and rust spreads. Parapet walls around flat or shallow roofs crack and let water behind the flashings. Old corrugated iron rusts at every nail.

We deal with these properly before coating. That can mean replacing rusted sheets, refixing loose sheeting with new screws, renewing flashings at parapets and replacing broken tiles. Then the whole roof is washed with industrial rotating nozzles, rust is treated, porous tiles get an anti-fungal wash, and the right primer goes on ahead of two or more sprayed coats.

Roof painting in Parow before solar goes up

A lot of Parow households are adding solar panels, and the timing matters. Once panels are bolted to the roof, painting or repairing underneath them becomes difficult and expensive, because they may need to be lifted off and refitted. It makes sense to have the roof checked first.

Our pre-solar roof inspection looks at the condition of the coating, tiles, sheeting and fixings where the panels will sit. If the roof needs repairs or a recoat, it is far easier to do it now, so the panels go onto a sound surface that will last as long as they do. We will tell you honestly if the roof is already in good enough shape.