Tile Roofing for Orlando Homes — Concrete & Clay

Residential Roofing

Tile looks permanent, and the tile itself very nearly is; concrete and clay both shrug off UV and heat that would have finished a shingle roof. What wears out is everything under and around it. The underlayment that actually sheds water, the flashing at walls and valleys, the mortar or foam holding the hip and ridge tiles, and the fasteners. A tile roof at the end of its life usually has a field of perfectly good tile sitting on a membrane that has turned to dust.

That single fact drives every decision on this page. It is why a leak on a tile roof can rarely be fixed by swapping the tile above the stain, why a re-lay is sometimes the right call instead of a replacement, and why the structure underneath has to be checked before anyone talks about switching from shingle to tile. We install, repair and re-lay concrete and clay tile on homes across Central Florida, and we photograph the underlayment so you can see what you are paying for.

Concrete versus clay

Concrete tile is the common choice in Central Florida subdivisions: a cement and sand mix cast into flat, low-profile or barrel shapes and colored through or on the surface. It is heavier than clay, less expensive, and its surface color fades and chalks over years of UV, which is mostly cosmetic. Clay is fired and holds its color for as long as it exists; it is lighter per tile, more brittle underfoot, more expensive and most at home on Mediterranean-style architecture where the barrel profile is the point.

Both are available in profiles that interlock, which improves wind performance, and both are set with the same underlayment, battens or foam and flashing details underneath. On a replacement we match the existing profile where the HOA requires it and show the alternatives where it does not. The tile is the part you see; the choice between them is mostly about weight, cost and how the house is supposed to look.

Weight and what the structure has to carry

A tile roof weighs several times what a shingle roof does, and a house built for shingle was not necessarily framed for that load. Older Orlando homes, additions and any roof with long rafter spans or sagging between them need an engineer’s sign-off before tile goes on, and the permit office will ask for it. Retrofitting the structure to carry tile is real work: sistered rafters, added purlins or bracing, sometimes a new ridge beam. It can be done, and it can also cost more than the tile itself.

On a house that already has tile, the structure has proven it can carry the weight, and the question becomes whether the deck under the underlayment is still sound. Water that got past an aged membrane has often been sitting on the plywood for years. We check it from the attic and at tear-off, and the scope carries deck replacement as its own line so the number is known.

The underlayment does the waterproofing, and it ages first

Tile is a rain screen. It sheds most of the water and shades what is under it, but wind-driven rain, water tracking sideways at a valley and the constant Florida humidity all reach the underlayment, and the underlayment is the roof. On older tile roofs that is a felt or hot-mopped membrane that has dried, cracked and pulled away at every fastener after decades of heat cycling under the tile. The tile above it looks the same as the day it was set.

A modern re-roof puts a self-adhered, high-temperature underlayment over the whole deck, tile-specific flashing at walls, valleys and penetrations, and a tile attachment system tested for Florida wind, whether foam-set, screwed or clipped. The underlayment is the line item on the scope to read most carefully, by product name, because it is the part doing the work and the part you will never see again once the tile goes back down.

Re-lay, repair or full replacement

Because the tile outlasts the membrane, a tile roof offers an option shingle never does: lift the existing tile, replace the underlayment and flashing, and set the same tile back. A re-lay keeps a tile that is no longer made, satisfies an HOA that wants the street to match, and avoids buying new tile. It only works if enough of the field survives lifting; there is always breakage, and a discontinued profile can be impossible to supplement. We count the spares before we promise a re-lay.

Isolated problems are repairs: a slipped tile reset, a cracked one swapped, a hip tile re-mortared, a valley re-flashed. What a repair cannot fix is a membrane that has failed broadly under a field that looks fine. If the leaks show up in new places each rainy season, the underlayment is done, and the honest scope says re-lay or replace rather than another tile swap. Our residential repair page covers the small stuff.

Foot traffic, hurricane debris and HOA neighborhoods

Most tile damage we see was caused by people, not weather: a satellite installer, a pest control tech or someone cleaning the roof walking the field and cracking tile that then leaked into the underlayment for a year. Tile is walked on the lower third where it is supported, never on the crown, and it is easier to break than it looks. After any trade has been on your tile roof, it is worth a look from the ground for slipped or cracked pieces.

Hurricane season adds its own pattern: wind lifts and displaces ridge and hip tile where the mortar has aged, and flying debris cracks field tile that then admits water at the next storm. After a named storm, the storm damage page covers how we document that for a claim. Communities across Orlando, Winter Park and Kissimmee require tile by covenant; we supply the product data and samples the architectural committee wants before the permit is pulled.

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Common questions