This prestigious museum was completed in 2001, but the complex flat roof had failed. AccuRoof worked collaboratively with South Tyneside Council and John Flowers Flat & Industrial Roofing Ltd to deliver a much more robust replacement on a live, confined site, keeping close to programme and budget.
The Project:
The Bede Museum is part of the Jarrow Hall complex, a 10 acre on the south bank of the Tyne. The Bede Museum and its adjacent Anglo-Saxon village is a prestigious venue in the northeast, frequently visited by parties of schoolchildren and the public alike.
The museum’s flat roof had several levels, an Impluvium (an architectural feature designed to collect rainwater) and multiple individual rooflights. In the 2010s it began to leak in several places, and South Tyneside Council asked AccuRoof to carry out a survey and advise on mitigations. The council then obtained Arts Council funding for the works and a full roof replacement commenced at the end of 2024.
AccuRoof had worked with South Tyneside on numerous other projects, but this was the first time Building Surveyor Oliver Wilson had worked with the team. It was to be a live site with continued use by schools and the public during the works, especially in the holidays. AccuRoof’s expertise in live education sites and in flat roof refurbishment would be a good fit, as was our collaborative approach.
“Some companies refuse the back and forth of ideas that are inevitable in a project like this,” Oliver Wilson explains, “but AccuRoof were very professional, easy to talk to, and keen to come up with helpful ideas. I’m very happy with them as a company.”
Design and Specification:
The failed roof was an inverted single ply design with 80mm of XPS insulation and between 30-75mm of river washed pebble ballast. “It was clearly in need of a complete replacement,” explained Specification manager Martin Quigley, “but with so much ballast it was difficult to design the replacement before the ballast was stripped off,” he says.
“We knew a tapered scheme and built-up roofing would be the most appropriate replacement and we arranged for an initial design based on what we did know, together with a budget estimate with contingency, which could be firmed up once the roof had been stripped. A structural engineer commented that the roof would probably move once the ballast was removed, so we would have to adjust the tapered insulation design after remeasuring at that point.”
The majority of the roof was draining through 20 outlets buried in the exterior and interior walls, and many of these were also leaking. Without damaging and expensive opening up, it would be impossible to ensure that these would perform adequately once the roof was replaced. AccuRoof’s technical team worked with the client to develop an alternative drainage scheme to take the water to the outside of the building and connect into the existing underground drainage runs, thereby avoiding expensive and abortive works.
Implementing the Project:
The strip and replacement were carried out by AccuRoof Registered Roofing Contractor and member of South Tyneside’s flat roofing framework John Flowers Flat & Industrial Roofing, whose headquarters in Washington are only 15 minutes away. Contracts Manager Gavin Hunt was keen for his team to win the project; it is a good-sized job on a well-known local building, and a previous project with AccuRoof had gone very well. “The specification was from a reputable manufacturer, SIG AccuRoof, who are well established in the region. We knew we could rely on them for technical support,” he explained.
Working together the installer and client, we came up with a programme for the works that would allow for the building to continue operating throughout.
The tight site was well known to the John Flowers team, who set up operations in part of the car park. They were also not put off by the need for the building to be operational, or the prospect of removing 400 cubic metres of river pebbles by hand. “We sourced extra local labour to help, and installed a full perimeter scaffold, ramp and waste chute so that we could operate a one-touch process,” Gavin Hunt explains. Oliver Wilson was impressed with the work.
“The team on site were fantastic. Because the site didn’t allow for any larger machinery, they had to shovel and wheelbarrow the pebbles into 8-yard skips day after day until it was removed.”
Once the ballast was removed the roof was remeasured and the tapered insulation scheme adjusted to suit. This was installed as part of a SIGnature 25 Torch-on Reinforced Bitumen Warm Roof System with the new drainage scheme, replacement rooflights throughout and triple skin insulated domes to provide better thermal performance. The existing stone copings were encapsulated with bespoke aluminium flashings.
During the whole contract the project was supported by AccuRoof with weekly progress meetings and the attendance of AccuRoof field technician Billy Lavender, supporting the installation and answering contractor queries.
Now the project is complete, what would South Tyneside Councils Oliver Wilson’s advice to clients in a similar position be, if they are dealing with a complex flat roof refurbishment? It’s: “Don’t be overwhelmed.”
“If you have a good team of people, you can work together and come up with solutions. It might take longer, but the outcome will be better. There were a lot of unknowns, but we came up with a plan and it hasn’t made much difference to the overall cost outcome, which is close to the tender returns. That’s a much better outcome for us, given how many unknowns there were.
“Health and Safety were surprised we didn’t have any problems, which is a great sign, and I’m over the moon with the result. The building looks much better than it did previously – the perimeter cappings look almost to a military standard. It’s an amazing transformation.”
