Compare roofing quotes on a flat roof, a tile roof, or both

A flat roof here can carry several generations of built-up membrane and gravel, and a tile roof may sit over an earlier shingle roof from before the code changed. Stripping either is heavier and slower than stripping one layer of shingle, and the disposal is different. A quote priced for a single layer on a roof that has more will not hold.

Under gravel the deck has often been wet at the low corner for decades, and under tile it can be soft at every valley. Nobody sees either until the covering is off. A price per sheet, and the count the estimate assumes, bounds that risk. Silence leaves it to be settled on a hot deck.

On the tile section the membrane is the roof; on the flat section the base sheet and cap sheet are the whole system. A quote that says "underlayment" for one and nothing for the other has described half a house. Ask for the product by name on each part.

Ice is not the question in Broward; rain that comes in flat and a sealed deck are. Whether the tile section is fully sealed with a self-adhered membrane, taped at the seams, or left at the code minimum decides what happens when tile lifts, and it decides what the wind mitigation report says. Each answer is a different quantity and a different premium.

Where the flat section meets the wall of the taller part, or a lanai roof meets the house, re-using the old metal and sealing it is faster on the day. Ocean air eats that sealant quickly, and re-used flashing is the usual reason a roof a few years old is staining a ceiling.

Chimneys are rare on this housing, but every roof has penetrations that behave the same way: vent stacks, a satellite mount, solar standoffs, the scupper through the parapet on a flat section. Each is its own flashing detail, separate from the field, and each is routinely absent from a headline number.

A Broward attic runs hot and damp for most of the year, and a flat roof has almost no attic to vent at all. Reinstalling the vents that were there does nothing about the first case and cannot help the second. The quote should say what it is doing about each.

The metal at the eave of the tile section and the edge metal on the flat section are where wind gets under a roof, and in Broward that is the whole question. Whether the edge is rated, how it is fastened, and whether the starter is sealed are cheap lines that decide whether the first course of tile stays where it was set.

Gutters on a tile roof are often absent by design; on a flat section the scuppers and downspouts do that job. Whether existing gutters come down and go back, get replaced, or get worked around, and whether the scuppers are being rebuilt, should be written lines rather than assumptions.

Broward issues its own permit and inspects the fastening pattern and the sealed deck, and the cities inside it add their own steps. Whether the contractor pulls the permit, bills it separately, or leaves it to you are three different arrangements, and the permit is what the insurer asks for.

The manufacturer stands behind the tile or the membrane. Somebody has to stand behind the fastening, the seams and the flashing, which is where a Broward roof lets water in first. If only the material is warranted in writing, the tile is covered and the workmanship is not.

Gravel and old membrane off a flat roof, or barrel tile off a pitched one, coming down onto a paver driveway beside a pool cage. Where the container sits, how the screen enclosure is protected, and a sweep for nails before the season are small lines that produce most of the complaints afterward.