Calusa Roofing

Roofing contractors in southwest Florida

Half the roofs here are tile, and tile hides its own condition well. What decides the outcome is the layer underneath it, which nobody looks at and everybody pays for eventually.

The part of the quote nobody reads

On a tile roof the tile is not what fails, and it is not really what you are buying. Underneath it a membrane is doing all of the work, and its clock started the day it went down. Ask what happens to that layer, because a roof can be relaid with the same tile and be genuinely new underneath, or look untouched and be exactly as old as it was last week.

The other question is where the roof meets the lanai. Those tie-ins were added later more often than not, and they are the first place a screen enclosure and a roof stop agreeing with each other. A quote that does not mention them is not covering them.

The rest is easier. Whether the flashing is new or cleaned up and put back, what the crew charges per sheet if they turn up soft decking, and who picks up the phone in a year. Ask all three. The answers take a minute and they tell you what sort of outfit you are dealing with.

A roof here rarely gives out in the field. It gives out where the water is told to leave. Six failure points, numbered. Five are places where the roof meets something else.
Garage Point 1: ridge caps 1 Point 2: the field of the roof 2 Point 3: valleys 3 Point 4: flashing 4 Point 5: vent boot 5 Point 6: eaves and the lanai tie-in 6
  1. 1 The ridge. The highest, hottest course, and the one the sun works on all day.
  2. 2 The field. Tile or shingle above, and the underlayment that actually keeps water out below.
  3. 3 Valleys. One channel carrying what two slopes shed, at the pace this coast rains.
  4. 4 Flashing. Where the lanai and the enclosure meet the house, and where neither trade owns the seam.
  5. 5 Penetrations. Every vent and curb is a hole the underlayment has to seal, and the first place it stops.
  6. 6 Eaves and metal. Drip edge and fasteners, which salt air reaches years before it touches the covering.

The work

Why roofs fail in this region

Half the year a good share of these houses stand empty, so a small failure gets months to become a large one. Streets built in a single season, reaching the end of a first covering together. Tile that looks permanent over an underlayment that is not. Fasteners and metal working in salt air. Slopes laid shallower than what went on them. And the joint where the lanai meets the house, added later and flashed as an afterthought. Most of what gets reported here traces back to one of those.

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