When it comes to this stuff, I have no better knowledge than most of you folks, but I'll tell ya-- I lived down in Homestead for about three years, and I don't know that I'd want a shingled roof when the winds start to blow!! That would be the first thing to go, and then the rest of the house is trash.

Thanks, Bill, that was my impression of the lasting ability of shingles, but the 'shingle group' here keeps telling me it's just as bad for tile roofs. ?? We'll see if I can get some additional responses from the nice people on this forum. Do you think that I should have posted this under a different heading?

fwiw, I'm no roofing expert other than I can say you'll save a bundle changing from a colored roof to white. Wow.. just did that.

I've lived in homes with asphalt shingles and barrel concrete tile roofs. Without a doubt the concrete tile roofs have way cooler attics which should reflect significantly on power bills. I've never swapped out tile for asphalt so I cant speculat on how much of a power bill hit it might be.

My last home with barrel concrete tile roof was slightly over 30yrs old when I sold it and the original roof... only had one minor problem with a valley flashing. I had the roof cleaned every 2 to 3 yrs years and re- painted the same white once during my ten year stay there.

Plain old, supposedly 30 year shingles, last about 17 yrs here according to my neighbor whom was married to a roofer, divorced - and dated one for years. And Architectural grade asphalt shingles go 20 some yrs. - From my experiences ,, she's pretty dng close to dead on with ashpalt shingle life. -- Roof where I'm at now, your typical light brown 30yr fibreglass asphalt shingles .. was just replaced at maybe 15 yrs old and it was needing replacing for maybe the past 5 yrs.

Would think I might want to check with the A/C guys and load calculations for airconditioning ... changing to asphalt might require larger a/c units.

beverly-- I don't know. I got down to Homestead about 6 months after Andrew blew through, and you could tell the neighborhoods where there had been shingle roofs. Every one, without fail, were completely destroyed, except for the 4 block walls. While there were several homes with barrel roofs that failed as well, there were many that didn't. With odds like that, I'll take the barrel roofs.

After going through the north wall of the eye of Andrew(the strongest winds) with cemented down barrel tiles I would definitely NEVER use them again (sorry to disagree with you Bill). On the N.E. side of our two storey house (where the storm came from)the tiles were ripped off together with the concrete they were embedded in. On the other sides of the house 60-70% of the tiles were all cracked due to the flying debris.

In the last two years we have been through Wilma,Frances and Jeanne with white,flat cement tile and these break where any heavy debris lands on them as well. Of course we did not have anywhere near the damage in these three hurricanes as caused by Andrew.

After Andrew I became very interested in what is actually the best type of roof to deal with heat and hurricanes. My conclusions are that metal roofs are the best choice and I think some research showed that they did perform the best in Andrew.

As stated above white is the best color to reflect the heat but a radiant barrier(which is inexpensive) should be installed under the metal roof(or under whatever roofing material is used). This would very much reduce the heat build up in the attic.

Shingles cause more heat to be absorbed into the attic than the white flat cement tile because of the rough surface of the shingle (the rough surface absorbs heat whereas the flat tile reflects more heat). Then of course the shingles come in browns/greys etc (I don't recall seeing any white ones)and colors absorb more heat than white. This is a problem with the dark color of the barrell clay tiles as well.

In my opinion a shingle roof would devalue your property and I don't know why anyone living in a hurricane zone would ever install a shingle roof. From my hurriane experiences I would not have barrel tile or flat cement tile either. We need a new roof and pan to install a white standing seam metal roof with a radiant barrier underneath if we can ever get a roofer out to do the job! But attention needs to be paid to correct installation and proper securing of the roof trusses to the cement block wall.

A realtor friend recently told us the best sellers in our area(in S.Fl) were hip roofs in metal and a Key West look. The metal roofs are guaranteed for 50 years from what I recall and are expensive- something like barrel tile I think.

vireyafl-- Not a problem. Like I said, I don't know any more than anyone else where roofing is concerned. What I DO know is that as light and as good of a sail as a shingled roof makes, it's a bad idea in hurricane country. Although I don't know that much about the dynamics of metal roofs down there, I know they're just becoming popular up here over the last 5-6 years because of the fact that they don't build up ice dams as much during the winter, greatly increasing the life of the roof. One other thing I do know for a fact-- not one shingled roof was left after Andrew, and because of that, the homes below them were a total loss.

Yes Bill I agree with you about the shingles, but what amazes me is that their installation is still allowed in hurricane zones.

I agree. It gets worse, though. I don't know if it's still legal or not, but one of the houses I worked on while I was down there was by the Glades in Florida City, and was wood frame construction on stilts!! You wouldn't even need a full tropical storm to take that down!! Far as I'm concerned, EVERYTHING should be CBS construction in hurricane zones.

I would feel very unsafe in a hurricane in a wooden house but I have read that structures built of wooden shingles, where the shingles overlap each other so that they are 3 deep are very strong. But for me wood is a nuisance with rotting in the humidity and rain. Dade County seems to be pretty much CBS now but I am amazed that here in Palm Beach County there are so many wooden homes(with shingle roofs) or 2 storey houses where the lower floor is CBS and the second floor is wood and a shingle roof.

My preference would be for a house built of Insteel 3D Panels, which are resistant to hurricanes and earthquakes. Whatever is used though, the method of attachment of the roof is critical as this is the vulnerable point, providing the windows and doors are protected. I agree the minimum requirements should be CBS.

I think there's no major hurricane problem with asphalt shingles if the underlayment and shingle is nailed on meeting current codes. Lots more nails! At least it minimizes the damage.

Would think concrete tiles go bye bye - they dont weigh much.

Seems the big problem is loosing a window or door and then the pressure can build in the house lifting the wood off the roof.

Simple construction adhesive, aftermarket.diy/homeowner style added on both sides of the rafters increases the sheathing hold down power by several times , much better than nails alone in most homes - as recomended on some gov website out there anyhow. Imagine the roofers will be cursin when tearing off some of that wood someday.

The LBL Cool Roof Database has a huge amount of information on heat gain from various types of roofs. The short story is that temperature rise (roof temperature compared with air temperature) is roughly linear as a function of reflectivity. Black shingles have 5% reflectivity and an 82 degree heat gain; gray and brown are around 8%/79 degrees; white (they exist, but I think they're really ugly) are 25%/64 degrees. Shingles don't do any better than that because they are really black underneath. Red clay tiles are around 45%, while white tiles can have reflectivity as high as 80%, which gives you a temperature rise of around 10 degrees (over 70 degrees cooler than shingles!). White metal does just as well as white tile, and is much better for hurricanes. And metal roofing also comes in a variety of colors with a reflective paint that allows you to get >40% reflectivity in colors other than white. Check out the Follansbee website for a table of reflectivity for the various colors. We're planning to use the Portland Stone color.

Good luck!
-- Amanda

Emmission rating is important too, sounds like maybe more so than reflectivity. Angle of the sun striking the roof is a big deal too. I have white metal alum awnings that are hotter both under and on top than my white Energy Star ashphalt. Go figure.

Our 5 year old shingle roof came through Wilma without a single shingle lost even though we had damage to our garage door,patio and fence. But, the key thing being, it is a newer roof. Older roofs in our area did not hold up at all. So, basically shingle roofs are fine if they are installed according to the post Andrew codes which include a ridge vent and I believe longer/more nails. Personally I don't think it is a good idea to downgrade to shingles from tile as it will probably lower the value of the property.

As long as the metal is painted the emission should be 80-90%+ -- galvalume and other bare metals are down in the 40's, and Mikie is right that those roofs are hot despite having high reflectivity.

We lived in Tampa for a while and Helena hit us pretty badly, but we did not even make the national news. We had a shingled roof and had no roof damage at all and we were right on the water. Most of our damage was wave damage and then of course the salt water which destoys everything. But Helena was no Andrew for sure!

Now we are in IL and have about 20 acres of pasture on our west border and do get 50-80 mph winds regularly. Just to illustrate the wind problem we have, at Thanksgiving 2000 we had a 15' snow drift up the west wall of our big barn and the weight pushed the double doors in about 2'. I had broken my foot and was in a cast and could not keep up with the shoveling that year. Our 2.5 story barn was built in 1980 and had original shingles and there was no problem except a few minor leaks around the copulas. We just re-shingled it last year and so far so good.

Bev27, if that "less than 20 years" is on a replacement roof, that's about all you get in So-Fla. I do not know why original tile roofs last 25 years but replacement tile roofs only last 16-18 years... BIG MYSTERY!?!? You'd think the tract home builders would be using the cheaper underlayment, etc. Might have to do with trusses sagging over time...?

(FYI: if you ARE on your original tile roof, when they strip it off, every ceiling in your house will crack a little, because the trusses will "bounce back" when that tremendous weight is removed. No biggie, a bit of spackling and paint... but save the interior re-mod/re-paint 'til after the roof job. ;')

I'm in Ft. Laud, got the worst of Wilma, and the houses with cheapie thin shingles took flight, while those with heavier higher quality shingles were fine. If your area of SW FL has not yet adopted the Miami-Dade codes (as Broward has), then it's up to you to get familiar with them, and get quotes based on that... e.g. RING-SHANK NAILS, closer nail spacing, etc.

That said, NO, you do NOT want to downgrade to asphalt shingles. The concrete (not thin clay barrel tiles) tiles will last 2.5-3 times longer than shingles, PLUS the esthetics, property value, and COOLING COSTS issues. If upfront cost is an issue, the recent run-up in values should give you plenty of equity to borrow against.

Having my own home plus rental props in So-Fla, I realize that I am really just RENTING MY ROOF... yep, it's about $100/month/property! (OOPS, that's 2003 pricing... )

The experience vireyafl had in Andrew with CEMENT-glued tiles is no longer a problem if the new EPOXY FOAM is used--it's rated for 208MPH! Make sure you get that too.

The METAL roofing sounds promising, but of course the problem is finding a roofer that KNOWS how to install it properly. Perhaps mfrs. websites list roofers they have certified via training and inspection of their jobs.

Of course since the attic is well-nigh useless in So-Fla, I'd REALLY rather have the all-concrete roof (pre-stressed T-sections anyone?), and only have to worry about caulking up the seams every N years. ;')

Fixizin- Private individuals recorded the wind speed in the north wall of the eye of Andrew at 208 and 214 MPH. The official wind guages blew away at 140MPH - that is why they said Andrew was a cat.4 for years until they woke up to the extent of the damage and took notice of the records of private individuals.

I agree with your concrete roof suggestion as well. Concrete formed with Insteel 3D panels which is both reinforced and insulated. If not concrete then metal (galvalume, painted with Kynar finish).Next choice would be concrete tiles and a distant last, shingles.

Thanks to all who provided such great information on this topic. The HOA committee did end up deciding to stay with the concrete roof tile. The next decision will be to select a manufacturer and a color.