Hiring The Wrong Slate or Tile Roofing Contractor

Did you know that there is a large percentage of roof damage that is caused by roofing contractors that don't Know what there doing? Its true, hiring the wrong contractor to work on your slate or tile roof can be detrimental. Not only to your roof but too your wallet as well. Let me help illustrate with a few photos.

 This is called a cricket, it diverts water away from the chimney as it flows down from behind it. As you can see it is real sloppy work. Now our first goal as a roofing contractor  is to make it water tight, yes... but the second is to make it LOOK GOOD ! Just because you cant see it from the ground does not mean you shouldn't take pride in your work. Lets see if we can find a cricket installed properly.

 Now you cant tell me that is not beautiful. That is a roofing contractor who takes pride in his work. Scott Morrow from Scott Morrow Slate & Tile Roofing & Repairs Of Atlanta Georgia installed this cricket. There are a lot of roofers out there, but when it comes to slate or tile you need to make sure you get the right one. And by the right one I mean one that has a background in slate and tile! Don't hire a asphalt roofing contractor to work on your slate or tile roof. Other wise you get work that looks like the next picture.

LOL! Now one can only guess whats going on here. It looks like the contractor didn't have the right material or the right tools to fix this plumbing boot the correct way, so he just put roofing tar all over it. And if you look real close it looks like he also put a Styrofoam cup in the top of it. I'm guessing that that plumbing stack is no longer in use from plumbing upgrades, just a guess. He still could have made it look better. and that roofing tar does not have as long of life span as copper. This next picture looks better.

See when you hire a qualified slate and tile roofing contractor, they have the right tools and material for the job. When you hire a contractor that does not have what he needs for the job you get repairs that look like the next picture.

There is a special tool used just to remove the slate. Its a really thin and long tool designed to slide under the slate and hook on the nails. Then it is hammered on until the nail pulls out. Then the piece of slate slides out. When the contractor does not have this tool you usually get whats in the picture above.

In the picture above is a slate ripper being used. See you cant lift the slate up to get to the nails to remove them like you can on asphalt shingles. And you cant get get under the slate to nail in the piece you just replaced ether, so a copper hook is nailed in to the roof where the slate would sit and hold it in place.

 
You can see the copper hooks used in the photo above. That is how a proper slate roof repair should look. In the next photo we will illustrate a tile repair from a contractor who didn't have the right material to do the repair the right way so he just used a piece of asphalt roofing. My guess is that he was a asphalt roofing contractor seeing that's what he used. What do you think?

Now the next picture is of a ridge cap that was repaired wrong. I personally love a copper ridge cap but like It might not appeal to every one. In cases when a copper ridge cap is not used then some sort of metal should be used underneath the slate where the two sides of the ridge meet.

In this photo you can see where they used felt paper. Felt paper is used to cover the decking of a roof as a second line of defense and is not meant to be exposed  to the elements. And when it is exposed it deteriorates a lot faster.
We hope this has been informative. Keep in mind to hire a slate and tile contractor to work on you slate or tile roof. To see more of Scott Morrow Slate & Tile Roofing & Repairs work you can visit him at his website.