Services
Tile and Slate RoofingBased in Southlake, TX
Concrete and clay tile and natural slate, repaired and replaced without a subcontractor in the middle.
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Tile and Slate
What the job actually involves.
Tile and slate are the roofs most roofing companies in this market cannot do in house, and that shows up as a problem for owners of the large custom homes across Southlake, Westlake and parts of Colleyville, where these roofs are common. A composition-only contractor either subcontracts the work to someone you never meet or explains why you should put a different roof on the house.
The thing to understand about a tile roof is that the tile is not what keeps the water out. The underlayment does. Tile is a rain screen and a sunshade: it sheds the bulk of the water and protects the membrane underneath from ultraviolet light, which is the thing that actually destroys underlayment. So a tile roof rarely fails because the tile failed. It fails because the underlayment reached the end of its life under tile that is still perfectly good.
How It Works
Call or send the form
Tell us what you are seeing and where the property is. A storm date helps if there was one.
Free inspection
About 15 to 20 minutes on the roof and in the attic, and you get a written report with photographs to keep.
The scope, in writing
What the roof needs, what it costs, and on a claim, what the carrier has and has not allowed for.
The work
Roof first, then the gutters, fence, windows or siding if the storm took those too. One company for the lot.
The Difference
Where these go wrong.
That changes what a replacement means. On a tile roof it is often a lift and relay: the tile comes off and gets stacked, the old underlayment comes out, new underlayment and new flashing go down, and the same tile goes back on with broken pieces swapped out. The roof looks identical afterwards and has another few decades in it, and it costs a fraction of new tile.
Slate is the same principle with less tolerance. Natural slate outlives the fasteners holding it and the flashing around it, so a slate roof in trouble is usually a nail and flashing problem rather than a slate problem. Walking a slate roof badly breaks it, which is the main reason slate repairs go wrong.
Tile and slate both take hail differently from composition: they crack rather than bruise, and a cracked tile in the middle of a field of good ones is a repair, not a roof.
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Recent work across Southlake, TX
Before You Call
Tile and Slate, answered.
My tile looks fine but the roof leaks. How?
Because the tile is not the waterproofing. The underlayment beneath it is, and underlayment has a shorter life than tile does. A leak under sound tile usually means the membrane or the flashing under it has reached the end.
What is a lift and relay?
The existing tile is removed and stacked, the old underlayment and flashing come out, new ones go in, and the same tile is reinstalled with the broken pieces replaced. It renews the part of the roof that actually wears out and keeps the part that has not.
Can broken tiles be matched?
Profile usually, color approximately. Concrete tile fades, and a color blend from twenty years ago may not be made any more. On a visible slope the usual approach is to take good tile from a hidden elevation for the repair and put the new tile where nobody looks up at it.
Does hail damage tile?
It cracks it rather than bruising it, and a crack is much easier to see and to document than the bruising on a composition roof. A handful of cracked tiles is a repair. A field of them after a large-stone storm is a claim.
Can I walk on my tile roof?
Better not to. Tile breaks under a foot in the wrong place, and slate breaks more easily than that. If you want to know what is up there, that is what the free inspection is for.
More from JWC General Contractors
Tile and Slate
Every job here starts with a free inspection and a written report that belongs to you.
Let's work together
Book a free inspection.
About 15 to 20 minutes on the roof, and a written report with photographs that is yours to keep whether or not there is anything to do.
JWC General Contractors 515 W Southlake Blvd Suite 150, Southlake, TX 76092 (214) 972-4266 · info@