Tile Roofing

Re-Underlayment

Your tile can last fifty years. The membrane under it gets maybe twenty, and that membrane is what actually keeps water out.

So when a tile roof leaks, the answer is usually not new tile. It is lifting and stacking the existing tile, replacing the failed underlayment, re-flashing every penetration and re-laying the same tile. That is a fraction of the cost. Any contractor whose first answer to a leaking tile roof is full replacement is either inexperienced with tile or selling you the expensive version. Ask about re-underlayment and watch how they answer.

Weight Decides Everything

Tile is dramatically heavier per square than asphalt. Going from shingle to tile requires a structural evaluation, and anyone quoting that conversion without discussing framing is skipping the step that matters. Staying with tile is straightforward, because the structure already carries it.

How Tile Roofs Fail

• Underlayment reaching end of life, by a wide margin the most common cause
• Cracked and slipped tiles, usually from foot traffic. Tile has to be walked on the lower third, over the batten
• Failed valley metal and flashing
• Mortar failure at ridge and hip on mortar set roofs
• Hail, which cracks tile. Individual tiles are replaceable, which is one of tile's real advantages

Tile In A North Texas Spring

Spring here brings squall lines across the Metroplex that carry hail and straight line wind in the same twenty minutes. Tile handles the wind well, since the pieces are heavy and mechanically fastened or mortar set at the perimeter. Hail is the other story. Concrete tile chips and cracks, and clay barrel tile can shatter outright when the stones get large.

The useful part is that damage stays local. A hail event may break thirty tiles on the windward slopes and leave the rest untouched, and thirty tiles is a repair rather than a roof. That is why we photograph and count tile by slope after a storm instead of estimating a percentage. Sourcing is the real constraint on an older roof, because profiles get discontinued, so we tell homeowners to keep the leftover stack from the original job somewhere dry. Salvage yards cover the rest.