What Grows in the Dark? Big Money Repairs & Mushrooms!

A small leak helped feed this fungus on the underside of a poorly built tile roof. This is a very common find for tile roofs with "direct-to-deck" batten systems.

FINDING roof leaks is often a combination of high tech tools, industry knowledge and thousands of hours of experience. Every so often, though, you find a smoking gun (so to speak). On a recent inspection we found just that. Enter the "I know a guy" repair attempt.

"Repair" by a cheap roofer during a real estate transaction. This shoddy job led to serious damage.

I often tell homeowners that one of the BEST ROOFS you can put on your house is a tile roof...so long as it's built right. Too often home builders skimp on proper materials (like elevated battens) and end up setting home owners up for big money repairs down the road.

The frustrating thing about situations like this is the simple fact that a small increase in material cost makes for a substantially better roofing system. The profit gains for building a tile roof without raising the battens are so small, it boggles the mind that builders would consciously choose to build these roofs wrong.

"Direct-to-deck" battens collect dust, pollen and other organic materials on the felt paper.

Skimping on the batten systems is not enough for a lot of these home builders. They go further by using the cheapest possible underlayment (the actual water resistance of your roof). By using "felt paper" the builders are encouraging fungal growth on the roof. On a recent repair we found a rotted batten system, disintegrated paper and a significant "mushroom" growing out of the leak. We removed the entire facet, harvested tiles for re-installation, replaced the rotten decking, installed SYNTHETIC self-adhering underlayment, raised the battens off the deck and then put it all back together. Happy Roof = Happy Home Owner! #BuiltBetter #AdventuresInRoofing #TileRoofRepair #TileRoofCleaning #ParkerRoofer #RoofLeakRepair #GoldenSkyRoofing