Between the ocean and the Everglades a roof answers to salt on one side and sun overhead, and on a great many properties, to an association that decides what goes back on. The failures, meanwhile, keep to a short list of places: where the roof meets something else, or where something passes through it.
- 1 The ridge. The highest, hottest course, and where a shared roof usually begins and ends.
- 2 The field. What is on top is the wear layer. What is under it does the waterproofing.
- 3 The valley. One channel carrying what two slopes shed, and where debris settles between rains.
- 4 Wall flashing. Where an addition or an enclosure meets the house, and where neither trade owns the seam.
- 5 Penetrations. Collars, curbs and skylights: holes cut on purpose, then sealed. They open first.
- 6 Eaves and metal. Drip edge and fasteners. Near the water they end the roof; twelve miles west they do not.
The six
- Whose roof is itWho actually owns the roof
- Salt, mile by mileTwenty miles from salt to none
- Rules that pick for youWhen the community picks the tile
- Phased replacementWhen the whole community is re-roofed in phases
- Two eras meetingWhere an addition meets the original roof
- Holes in the roofEvery hole in the roof
Who decides, and what the ocean does
A twenty-mile crossing from the Atlantic to the edge of the Everglades, so the same house ends at its metal on one side of the county and at its underlayment on the other. A summer rain that arrives daily and tests every seam on a schedule. And a housing stock where a great many roofs are not owned by the people living under them at all. And on a good many of these roofs, the decision is not the owner’s to make.