Tile roofing in Las Vegas: repair, replacement and underlayment

Concrete tile is everywhere in the Las Vegas valley, and it is genuinely well suited to the climate: it shrugs off ultraviolet light, it does not curl or lose granules, and the tiles themselves routinely outlast the roof they are sitting on.

That last point is the one homeowners are rarely told. On a tile roof the tile is largely a rain shield and a sunshade. The actual waterproofing is the underlayment underneath it, and underlayment has a much shorter life than tile does. A tile roof can look immaculate from the street while the layer that keeps water out has reached the end of its service life.

The underlayment is the roof

When a tile roof starts leaking and the tiles are all intact, this is almost always why. The felt or synthetic underlayment beneath has dried out, gone brittle, cracked along the fastener lines and stopped shedding water.

The repair for that is not a tile job. It means lifting and stacking the tile, stripping and replacing the underlayment, and relaying the same tile back down. It is labour intensive, it is a significant cost, and it is frequently the correct answer on a valley tile roof that has reached a certain age with its tile still in good condition.

Relaying existing tile over new underlayment is also considerably cheaper than buying new tile, which is worth knowing before anyone quotes you a full replacement.

Broken and slipped tiles

Individual tile failures are common and mostly repairable. The usual causes in this valley:

• Foot traffic, from anyone walking the roof without knowing where the load-bearing points are, which includes satellite installers, solar crews and air conditioning technicians
• Wind lifting tiles at edges, hips and ridges during monsoon cells
• Debris impact during storms
• Failed mortar at ridge and hip lines, which lets cap tiles shift
• Thermal movement over many years loosening fasteners

Do not walk a tile roof

Tile is strong in the right places and brittle everywhere else. Walking it without knowing the pattern cracks tiles underfoot, and those cracks are frequently invisible from the ground while quietly exposing the underlayment to sun.

This is worth saying to anyone you hire for any roof-adjacent job. A cheap satellite dish installation that cracks nine tiles is not cheap.

Who actually does the work

An independent roofing contractor, working under their own Nevada licence and insurance, not Best Vegas Roofer. They inspect your roof, quote you directly, and warrant their own work. Roofing in Nevada falls under contractor licence classification C-15, Roofing and Siding, issued by the Nevada State Contractors Board. (Nevada State Contractors Board, License Classifications)

Before work starts, check them yourself. The Nevada State Contractors Board publishes a free public licence search, so you can confirm a contractor is licensed, check the classification they hold and see their licence status before any work starts. (Nevada State Contractors Board, Contractor License Search)