The busiest season for roofers in Northern California is pretty easy to guess…when the rain begins to fall,
the phone begins to ring. Often times, the phone is ringing with on the other end for someone
desperate to find someone, anyone, to stop anymore water from coming through the ceiling. My goal
with this post is to help you, the consumer, understand how to navigate this challenging situation…and
how to prepare to undertake a roof repair or replacement.

First, lets debunk a couple of longstanding tile roof myths!!!

Tile Roof Myth number 1: I have a tile roof, and those last 50+ years.
Tile Roof Myth number 2: Tile roofs don’t fail as quickly as shingle roofs
Tile Roof  Myth number 3: All roofs can be repaired.
Tile Roof  Myth number 4: My roof is leaking…all I have to do is figure out where the water is getting in and the
rest should be an easy fix.

As a roofer, I’ll be the first to tell you that tile roofs are one of the prettiest roofs to look at. The intricate
design details, the color pallets, the traditional Spanish influence of the red clay S-tile…the list goes on.
But the benefits of a tile roof virtually end with the aesthetic resplendence. Tile is actually one of the
worst performing roofs that exists. Usually made from concrete, tile is very dense and heavy. It also
expands and contracts quite a bit as the temperature fluctuates seasonally. Tile is cut with a saw in
order to fit the unique shape of each roofing plane it protects. It is fastened mechanically with one or
two nails, then sealed with a mastic or caulking material, which disintegrates over time. Lastly, it’s
difficult to properly ventilate due to the complex nature of each individual piece being installed at the
time of the initial build. That said, tile is an extremely popular roofing option for us Northern
Californians. HOA’s (Home Owners Associations, not my kids Harvey, Olivia and Adrianna) often require
uniformity in the aesthetic of the neighboring houses, and tile is often the best solution. It’s one of the
least expensive roofing materials to manufacture and to buy…but it sure is a pain in the butt to load
onto the roof, and it also takes much longer to install once it’s up there!

I’ll say this, if you have a tile roof and haven’t walked around on it…the likelihood of it failing diminishes
greatly. Standard roofing maintenance, such as gutter cleaning, valley cleaning, and flashing
reinforcement can help a tile roof last a very long time. But tile is also one of the roofs I see fail most
often. It usually fails in the places I mentioned above (valleys, eaves, and around the flashing). The
challenge is often locating the failure, as it’s not as blatant as one might think. Leak detection on a tile
roof often requires partial, or even full removal on the roof plane that is leaking. That makes for
increased costs in labor and elevates the risk of damaging the tiles during removal whilst looking for the
source of the leak. Fortunately, we have several “tile boneyards” in Northern California. Think of the
scene in the Lion King when Simba and Nala stumble upon the elephant graveyard. Very similar situation
for us roofers…we show up fending off the hyenas of the roofing world in search for a handful of roof
tiles to match the broken ones we’ve removed off your 20-year-old roof. Not the most glamorous work,
but somebody’s got to do it. That may also help explain why tile repairs are a bit more costly than folks
anticipate when they happen.

Any roof can fail…as a matter of fact…they’re built to fail! Manufacturers of roofing products are a lot
like manufacturers of tires, windshield wiper blades, toothbrushes and lightbulbs. If you build something
that lasts forever, how do you sell more of it??? Don’t get me wrong, roofing products are the best
today that they’ve ever been. But they’ll still fail eventually! If they were installed improperly to begin
with, they may fail even faster. Folks that live in planned communities or communities that all share the
same builder are often great targets for roofers looking to work leak repairs. That’s not a slight against
the builder, that’s just reality. Builders are in the business of building homes and making a profit…usually
the largest profit possible. This often means that the materials used to build a roof in these types of
communities are not premium materials…and the labor hired to build the roofs as quickly as possible are
not premium installers. Remember, roofs are designed to fail eventually, and us roofers are all critics of
the different types of installation methods we see when we’re repairing or replacing an existing roof. I
won’t name any names or any specific communities, just know this is where we see the most consistent
roof failures year after year. Depending on the extent of the damage caused by the leak, and the
ineptitude of the original installer or manufacturer, some roofs simply are not repairable…and the best
thing to do is rip the whole thing off and start all over from the plywood to the top!

At Sierra Hills Roofing, we’ve designed a program to make your roof repair options as simple and
efficient as possible. We charge a flat fee to investigate the cause of your leak and determine the
necessary repairs. Often, repairs are able to take place during the initial visit, and without any additional
money spent. Sometimes, the repairs are much more in-depth and require some significant decisions on
whether or not to save the original roof or start over. My pledge is to be transparent and honest with
my customers, delivering you the best solution for your home. Call us today to discuss our repair
program. Thanks for reading!

Contact Sierra Hills Roofing today at 916-975-5095 for more information!

Sierra Hills Roofing is located at 3133 Penryn Rd. Suite 910 Penryn, CA 95663.