Roofing & Carpentry in Westlands, Nairobi
We cover Westlands including Westlands, Parklands border, Chiromo, Rhapta Road, Muthithi Road, Brookside, Riverside. Off Waiyaki Way and Muthithi Road. Most work here is in managed buildings, so materials go up in a service lift on a booked slot and noisy work is confined to the hours the building allows.
What is different about roofing and carpentry in Westlands
- Westlands work is mostly apartments and offices, which means flat and concealed roofs where the answer is waterproofing and drainage rather than sheeting.
- Materials reach a Westlands roof through a service lift on a booked slot, so a job is planned around lift access and sheet lengths rather than around a delivery vehicle.
- Management companies here set permitted works hours, and grinding or fixing outside them gets a job stopped mid-morning, so the programme is agreed with the building first.
Roofs in Westlands are mostly flat, and that changes everything
Westlands has redeveloped into apartments and offices, and the roof above most of that stock is flat or concealed behind a parapet rather than pitched and sheeted. That is a different trade problem. A pitched mabati roof leaks at a joint you can find and refix. A flat roof leaks because the membrane has failed somewhere, or because water is standing where it should be draining, and the wet patch inside can be a long way from the cause.
So on a Westlands leak the first question is where the water is ponding, not where the stain is.
Water tanks, plant and everything else on the roof
Apartment roofs here carry tanks, solar heaters, lift motor rooms and aerials, which means people walk them regularly. Every one of those visits is a chance to damage a membrane or dent a sheet, and foot traffic concentrated along the same route to the tank is the single most common cause of a failure we find on this kind of roof.
Where there is regular access we would rather lay a walkway than keep repairing the line people take anyway.
Getting materials to the roof
A house takes a delivery. A tenth-floor roof takes a booked service lift, and sheet or board lengths have to fit it. We check the lift dimensions before cutting, because material that has to be cut short to get upstairs means more joints, and joints are where roofs and joinery both fail first.
The joinery side
The same buildings generate a steady run of fitted work: wardrobes in apartments being let, reception desks and partitioning in offices, and making good the ceilings after a leak has been fixed. Doing the roof and the ceiling as one job means one responsibility rather than two trades disagreeing about whose water it was.
What we are usually called out for in Westlands
Landmarks we work around here: Sarit Centre, Westgate, Chiromo Lane, Waiyaki Way.