After hurricane Wilma, some of the tiles on the roof are broken, shifted, cracked, lifted, and missing. I tried calling a few roofers no one is available to come by, the soonest one roofer told me was three months to just "take a look" to actually do repair work will be much longer. Some friends of mine told me a year wait is not unheard of. Even the insurance adjuster has not come by.
So this morning I went up to the roof, not an exciting trip but have to do to see what I needed to do. The roofers told me I need to not expose the tar paper under the tiles to the run too long, after severl months they will disintegrate. Along the ridge are many tiles lifted up. About 80% of them were just lifted and moved so I was able to salvage them and put them back. Now they are pretty heavy so unless we have a strong tropical storm or hurricane I think they will stay. But of course the cement that held them together is no longer working. So they are just sitting on their own weight. For the few that were cracked and missing, I laid down some 4 mil plastic sheets over the tar paper and used duct tape. That did not work, duct tape apparently did not adhere well to rough concrete surfaces. So instead I laid them on the ridge and tucked them under some existing tiles and it held in place.
Many of the other tiles are "shifted". So I lifted one to see. Underneath there are a blob of concrete cement, and under that the tar paper. So I moved the tiles back to their original positions. So my question is, what was the purpose of the concrete cement? Was it there as structural support to hold the tiles up? or was it an adhesive to glue the tiles to the tar paper? Since so many of these tiles are lifted and loose, and I moved them back, are the tiles still good or do they need to be removed, the concrete cement removed and new one applied? Now that I moved them back, the roof looks 80% better, so my other concern when the insurance adjuster comes, the damage will look less than it really is. Are the tiles that came loose OK to be just "sitting" on their own weight? Something tells me no. But many of them are loose now, I can tell because some of them the entire row of tiles "shifted" as areas that used to be covered are now exposed with a lighter color. It took me some time to use a mallet to tap each one back to it's original position.
Heard news the insurance for wind storm will go up 19% by Feb next year with another hike of 48% later in the year. Thank you Wilma!
MC