Clay Tile
Installation can be tricky, but clay roofing tiles are durable and low-maintenance.
Clay roof tiles weigh about three times as much as asphalt shingles. So if you’re thinking of installing a new type of tile or tiling a roof for the first time, have a structural engineer evaluate your situation. Your roof framing may need bolstering to support the additional load.
Tiles are available as two-piece mission-barrel tiles; as one-piece low-profile concrete tiles; and as flat-shake tiles, which mimic wood shakes. Tiles overlap to direct rain into tile channels. Traditionally, tiles were set without nails on wood battens or skip-sheathing. But today they are commonly nailed to plywood sheathing, especially if the roof pitch is 5-in-12 or steeper. Two-piece mission tiles are nailed in two manners: Trough tiles are nailed directly to sheathing. Cap tiles, which sit atop trough tiles, are attached to intervening copper wires nailed to the roof.
Excerpted from Renovation, 5th Edition (The Taunton Press, 2019) by Michael Litchfield and Chip Harley
Available in the Taunton Store and at Amazon.com.