Metal vs tile roof for coastal Florida home
By Bud Kettering, Roof consultant and inspector. Reviewed by Hal Winstead, Editor, licensed roofing contractor. Last March I pulled a tile off a two-story roof in Cape Coral and found the felt underneath wet enough to wring out. The tile looked fine from the street—better than fine. The roof was newish, too, it was also leaking arround every chase where the old tile had been cut with a grinder and the flashing had never been redone. That's the real metal vs tile roof for coastal Florida home issue: it's not abotu the pretty surface. It's about what the surface hides. If you're thinking metal, start browsing metal roofing companies in Florida, but make them show you how they plan to handle the transitions, not just sell you the panels.
Most people call me after the first bid, not before. They've got a stack of estimates and one neighbor who says tile will crush the trusses and another one who says metal turns the upstairs into an oven. I spend my working life in Florida attics with a torch and a moisture meter, so I hear both arguments from the underside, usually while sweat runs down my arm and drips off my elbow. I of been wrong about roofs before. I'll be wrong again. But I'm not wrong about water: it finds the shortcuts first.
The short version of metal vs tile roof for coastal Florida home
If you put a gun to my head, I'd rather inspect a metal roof than a tile roof on the coast. Metal is lighter. It has fewer parts. It sheds water about as well as anything if the seams are done right. Tile has the look and the long life, but the way tile roofs go wrong in Florida is rarely the tile itself. It's everything around the tile.
I also inspect houses for buyers, sellers, and insurers, so I see what happens years down the line. A metal roof can fail at a fastener or a scratched edge. A tile roof can fail in twenty places and still look beautifull from the driveway. Do not mistake elegance for integrity