Spanish clay tiles give a home or building a refined, old-world appearance, enhancing a structure's value and curb appeal. Unfortunately, they are costly, and walking on clay tile roofs exerts pressure that can easily crack the fragile tiles. Broken tiles can easily compromise the roof's integrity, leading to structural and roofing damage and costly repairs. Therefore, to protect your expensive investment, you should avoid walking on your clay roof, leaving inspections, maintenance, and repairs to the roofing professionals.
How to Walk On a Clay Tile Roof
If you must access your clay tile roof, you can minimize the damage by following these important tips on how to walk on a Spanish clay tile roof. It’s important to know that one wrong step can crack and damage the tile on your roof.
- The flat-smooth surface of tiles makes them slick when wet. To avoid a serious fall, only walk on completely dry tiles. For steep roofs, use a safety harness that will anchor you to the roof in case you slip.
- Soft-rubber-soled shoes, like sneakers, will limit breakage and give you better traction on the slippery tiles, compared to heavy shoes or boats.
- Only step along the bottom 3-inches of the tiles since this area overlaps the row underneath them, providing additional support. When first stepping on the roof, place your feet parallel to the top ridge of the roof, along the bottom edge of the tile.
- Walk slow and carefully to limit pressure on the tiles.
- Walking on the balls of your feet can reduce pressure on the tiles. Avoid walking on the thick heels of your shoes, which more easily break the tiles.
- For roof tiles with close curves or waves, place the heel and ball of your foot on the peaks.
- To prevent too much pressure on a single tile, balance your weight between both of your feet. When transferring your weight, slowly apply pressure to one foot to limit force on the planted foot.
- Never step on a cracked or damaged tile.
Brava Synthetic Spanish Roofing Tiles Stand Up to Foot Traffic
You can avoid the problems of fragile clay tiles by using durable synthetic Spanish tiles. Brava’s synthetic Spanish tile roofing provides all the aesthetic values of Spanish clay tiles but with superior impact resistance and flexibility, backed by a 50-year warranty. You can also walk on the roofing tiles during and after installation without cracking the tiles.
Brava synthetic Spanish roofing tiles provide several significant benefits over natural clay tiles:
Impact-Resistance
Synthetic-roofing tiles from Brava have earned a Class 4 impact rating, by standing up to flying objects, wind, hail, ice, and rain, protecting the structure's interior, saving on costly maintenance, repairs, and possible roof replacement:
- Impact-resistant tiles ensure that a roof will maintain its integrity and strength against flying debris, hail, and winds up to 188 + mph with ring shank nails.
- Most impact-resistant tiles, like synthetic slate roofing, have a Class A fire rating.
- Synthetic clay roof tiles resist freeze and thaw cycles.
- Barrel Tile stands out as the only composite Spanish tile on the market that is 3rd party tested, and Miami-Dade County approved.
Ease of Installation
Brava synthetic Spanish roofing tiles are lightweight, and they install easily, quickly, and successfully, without the problems associated with heavy clay tile installation problems. Installation of synthetic tiles involves workers simply field-cutting the synthetic tiles with a utility knife. A pneumatic nail gun and standard roofing nails are used to secure the shingles in place. Lightweight Brava products also reduce shipping and installation costs by eliminating extra structural support (required of clay tiles).
Eco-Friendly Construction
Brava uses recycled and recyclable materials to produce eco-friendly roofing tiles. Their synthetic products also save energy over that required to mine slate, extract clay, or harvest trees. Brava’s Spanish Class C is the only white composite tile on the market.
Non-Fading Red Tiles
Brava’s revolutionary multi-coloring process produces a non-fading classic-red roof with authentic color variation and flow throughout the entire tile, from light-red to a dark-red roof tile. Moreover, UV-resistant synthetic tiles help retain the tiles' red color.
Walk Safely on Synthetic Clay Tiles From Brava
Walking on a natural clay tile roof during installation, inspections, or maintenance, can easily damage the fragile tiles, leading to costly roof repairs and replacement. You can avoid this problem with impact-resistant and flexible Brava synthetic Spanish tiles.
If you walk on Brava’s Spanish roofing tiles, they will not break. The eco-friendly synthetic Spanish roofing tiles also provide impact- resistance, ease of installation, and long-term aesthetic beauty.
Contact the professionals at Brava Roof Tile today for more on the benefits of synthetic clay tiles over natural clay tiles.
