Roof inspection
An inspection earns its cost when it answers a decision. In a market where a thirty-year-old tile roof can look immaculate and be finished underneath, the most valuable thing an inspection produces is a straight answer about what is actually up there and how much of it is working.
When it earns its price
Before buying — roof condition is one of the largest numbers hiding in a Florida purchase, and a home inspector’s general note rarely distinguishes between tile with twenty years left and tile whose underlayment is spent. Before the rainy season, on an ageing covering — the June-to-September downpours find every marginal detail, and finding them in April is cheaper in every sense. And when a tile roof passes twenty-five years, because that is when the invisible half of it starts making the decision.
What gets checked
On the surface: the covering and what it actually is; granule loss and slope differences on shingle; cracked, slipped or previously repaired tile; the condition of every valley and what is sitting in it; flashing at walls, chimneys and skylights; vent boots and collars, which crack and corrode long before the field fails; and any low-slope or flat section, with attention to what material is on it and how it ties into the main roof.
In the attic, which matters more here than most people realise: whether intake and exhaust actually exist and are balanced, staining or damp insulation around air-conditioning ductwork (the summer condensation problem), daylight at penetrations, and the underside of the deck. On a tile roof the attic is also where evidence of underlayment failure shows up first.
What the report is good for
A written report with photographs does three jobs. It turns a purchase negotiation from opinion into evidence, which matters when the difference between « fine » and « finished » on a tile roof is tens of thousands of dollars. It converts « sometime soon » into a plan with a season attached, which is what lets you gather quotes in the quiet months instead of after a wet August. And when replacement is the verdict, it becomes the scope document that makes three bids comparable — same underlayment, same low-slope sections, same metal — instead of three different guesses.