How do you best walk on red tile roofs, or do you stay off them, or do you ask customer to sign a waiver, or what do you do if you crack one, or does it matter if you crack one?
Pretty easy to walk on them walk towards the tops. Spread weight out.
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Its always nice if the customer has extra tiles in his garage leftover from when the roofers installed it. Then you know if you break one or two that you can easily replace it. I have broken a few in my day and it sucks because it dont matter how careful you are there is always a chance that a few tiles are not placed correctly and are more prone to break.
depending how confident you are walking the roof you may want to go on all fours to spread out your weight. if you look on youtube you will find videos of roofers showing you where the strong part of the tile is.
Just like this guy! Walking on roof tiles - YouTube. Just kidding. I hate tile roofs, but as long as you spread your weight out and stay on the overlap of the tiles you ought to be fine. This is also assuming you are on concrete tiles and not clay tiles.
^ lol, the german guy, lol
I remember seeing this before, thanks for reminding me that I need to put this on my website in the funny section.
Not the greatest visual but I was trained to walk on the peaks of the tile & have the valley beneath your boot. Haven’t had any cracks or snaps.
I concur with the boot illustration kind of, I spoke to Roofer who was installing barrel tile on a condominium last week and asked him about that and he said the part that lays flattest to the plywood which is in the valley in between the top rounded part of the tiles is where you should be walking as I stood there and watched his workers carry buckets of concrete laying row after row of tile
10 years of roofing taught me to walk where each tile over laps the other. I never walked in the lower “valley” part of the tile. There is actually a little space between the tile and the decking with more chance of breakage. If you walk where they overlap, you have a less chance of breaking.
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I see where this is headed and I’m not going there.
Walk wherever you want, just remember that when you start you cracking tiles you tell the homeower.
I highly recommend getting a signed waiver. Some roof warranties are void if roof tile are cracked due to foot traffic. I always inform my customers of this and offer to go on the roof if they wish, only with a signed off waiver.
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We dont get many tile roofs here in MN, but the jobs we do get with tile roofs, we stay off.
The one tile roof we cleaned, the woman specifically asked us not to walk on it, which was easy with the roof pump set up. Gutter cleaning, i mostly see tile roofs having a suspended gutter system where you have to rest the ladder on the tile and the gutter hangs below, unlike asphalt shingle roofs where the ladder can be placed against the front facing side of the gutter.
Id say if you gonna walk a tile roof, have them sign something saying you are not responsible for any prior damage or potential damage to the roof while you are completing the work order.
Customer education is key when facing any potential liability
I reread my post, and it is a little confusing.
Any part that overlaps is good to walk on, even the lower valley overlap. I was referring towards the back of the tile prior to the next tile overlapping. I would never recommend walking there. But you were right, the valley, lower portion, of the tile is an ideal place to walk as long as it’s the overlapping section of the next tile.
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I actually was on a brand new roof and walking on the high point of the roof tiles (the lower overlapping part but high as in the arches) and I had to because it was new construction and the windows had silicone and cement on them and I broke two tiles. I was being very careful. I happened to be extremely busy that day because I had 5 houses scheduled by myself. I over booked myself. I ended up being late to this ladies house and she was upset with me, So I realized the job was bigger than she told me over the phone and went to get help at lunch time, when I got back she was upset. “I waited a couple extra days because I thought you were the best!” she exclaimed. I got 10 panes cleaned in one hour and said that it was going to be fifty dollars. She thought she had 30 windows/panes and I explained that obviously (I left that part out) she had 50 panes and my price hadn’t changed from $5 per pane, she thought it was going to be $150 to do the exteriors I told her $250 because she thought she only had 30.
When I got back with help after an hour lunch break she said I should have gone to grab a quick burger at Wendy’s and that she was going to have someone else finish the job. At first I was heart wrenched until I started to wonder if she was just being cheap and didn’t realize it was going to be 50 panes instead of 30 and used it as an excuse to get someone cheaper. I told her to pay me $50 dollars for the work I had completed and she refused she gave me $25.00 I explained how she needs to pay for the work performed and even offered her a discount of 50% off her next service but explained I could not discount new construction especially since it was a 2 story home and my prices you tell me if thats cheap or not.
Any way here is the reason I’m telling you this story. I spent $10 on silicone to repair the two tiles I broke I walked on the low point of the tile where they overlap on the arch and I’m sure if I wasn’t as careful I would have broken more. She refused to let me finish and wouldn’t pay me $50 dollars for the work that was completed so I couldn’t repair her tiles and I did not tell her about them, perhaps I should have but at that point I was trying to get out of the fire zone without being completely burned. Just a note to any paying customer I always fix the problem but if I get stiffed that’s when I cut my losses. Breaking tiles sucks and according to the German its crappy tile that gets broken no matter how you walk, but that being said just wfp everything or do it from the inside unless its construction clean then I guess you gotta chance it.
It really is confusing to explain what part I walked on isn’t it, I walked on the lower overlapping part of the tile at its highest arching point. that doesn’t really explain it well… okay let me try this: the overlapping bottom section at the peak of the arch. there we go…
I agree with her, on the lunch part. But that’s just the way I do things. I never leave a job once I get started. I can’t imagine leaving for an hour lunch, especially after being late already. If you have several jobs lined up, hit lunch in between. If you will be on one job all day, bring a sack lunch, or quickly run up to the store. I know different companies have different policies, but that’s just how I do it.
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Yes I know but It took me an hour to go pick up my helper and grab lunch, she was just being unreasonable. She complained about me being late I was late because my first house was larger than expected, she complained about how long it was taking so I went to get a helper, she complained about how long that took and then she complained about my price. And tbh its none of her business where I go to lunch or if it takes an hour, standard lunch breaks are usually about an hour in the business world, I normally take only half an hour but it shouldn’t matter. If anything over booking myself was my only real mistake which I had to learn the hard way, don’t over book yourself, Ill admit it was probably my worst day of being self employed I’m glad its only happened once in 2 years, back to the subject I would like to know if there is anyway to avoid breaking these stupid tiles.
