Barrel tile and the membrane beneath
Broward wears tile at both ends of its history: clay barrels on the 1920s Mediterranean revivals near the beach, concrete profiles across the 1990s west. Different materials, same misunderstanding: the tile is a shell. The membrane underneath does the waterproofing, and it retires decades before the tile does.
- 1 Ridge caps. The ridge is first to bake, first to lift.
- 2 The field. Barrel tile or shingle, over an underlayment quietly doing the work.
- 3 Valleys. One line carrying what two slopes shed, at the pace this coast rains.
- 4 Flashing. Where salt reaches the metal years ahead of the covering it protects.
- 5 The vent boot. A rubber collar that hardens, cracks, and lets the rain straight in.
- 6 Eaves. Where the screen enclosure meets the roof, and where fasteners give up.
Two tiles, one clock
Clay barrel tile can pass a century, some of Victoria Park’s has. Concrete tile runs fifty years or more. The underlayment beneath either lasts twenty to thirty in this heat, and when it goes the roof leaks regardless of how the tile looks from the street. The job that follows is specific: lift and stack the tile, strip the spent membrane, lay new, relay the tile with breakage replaced. The roof afterwards looks exactly as it did, which is why the price surprises owners who expected a transformation.
On the old clay, one number rules the project: the salvage rate. Original profiles are often no longer made, matching replacements are a sourcing exercise, and the value of the roof is the tile itself, so the work is priced by care, not speed. A crew that treats hundred-year-old barrels like modern concrete pays for the difference in breakage, and so does the owner.
Reading a tile quote
The membrane named by product, not by the word “underlayment”, because products differ enormously under this sun. The breakage allowance stated in numbers, and the replacement-tile price if the profile is discontinued. The metal, flashings, valley metal, vent collars, replaced while everything is off, because there is no cheaper moment. And on any tile roof past twenty-five years, treat age itself as the signal: the shell is not the part that tells you.