Parapet Roof Drainage Design

Adding a parapet wall makes a flat roof far safer than leaving the roof s edge exposed.

Parapet roof drainage design. Install a drain at most 50 ft. In these cases the. On larger and more complex schemes specialist consultants may be employed to design the rainwater drainage system. If a building has roof access that residents use regularly for whatever reason adding a parapet greatly decreases the chance that someone could fall over the.

Working with manufacturers will help develop your understanding but don t delegate your design responsibility to them. With a parapet wall it is possible for a roof to retain or pond water should the primary roof drainage system fail. This kind of drainage system is most common on small flat roofs where water volume and buildup isn t extreme. Roofs of this design will have one or more roof drains or scuppers installed.

From a roof edge. Provide adequate flashing for parapets openings walls joints skylights etc. Limit the number of parapet walls. Keep the distance between drains to at most 200 ft.

However parapets block the drainage of rainwater from freely flowing over the roof edge. At page top and at left our photos show a low slope roof surrounded by a parapet. However these days parapets add a lot more to a flat roof than just a cosmetic detail. This type of pattern is particularly useful on buildings that are easily divided into rectangular areas.

Parapet and valley gutters are treated differently because they have a higher risk of failure. Requires a primary drainage system with. The drainage requirements for flat roofs on buildings present some special problems that we describe and illustrate here. In many cases these buildings have parapet walls that surround the perimeter of the roof.

The most dependable type of roof drainage design is the inverted pyramid pattern. Buildings that incorporate flat roofs with centralized roof drains and internal downspouts are another story. Back up secondary emergency drainage system in case the primary drain. Manually adjust roof planes to have a negative pitch to create a parapet wall structure with a center drain.

Install a drain at most 50 ft. Typically surrounded with parapet walls to screen roof top equipment and to provide. Architectural home design software all content support videos chieftalk forum. Looking at a building from the ground a parapet may seem to simply be a design choice that adds little more than a characteristic look to a building.

This would be in situations where a retaining wall or parapet prevents direct access to the roof s edge. It s also sometimes used in tandem with scuppers.