Slate & Tile Roof Restoration in Audubon, New Orleans
Grand early-1900s houses facing the park and the university campuses, on some of the largest residential roofs in the city. Slate, tile and long shingle runs, all under mature live oak.
- Audubon Park and campus corridor
- Large roof areas, long runs
- Slate, tile and heavy shingle
Audubon building stock, and what it means for a roof
Audubon sits between the park and the river, wrapped around the Tulane and Loyola campuses. The housing is early-twentieth-century and built to a scale that matches the setting — wide detached houses with deep porches, substantial roofs, and in many cases slate or clay tile chosen when those materials were the default for a house of that standing.
The practical consequence is roof area. These are among the largest residential roofs in New Orleans, with long uninterrupted runs that need proper staging rather than ladder access, and enough surface that a small percentage failure is still a significant repair. The live oak canopy around the park adds the same debris load the rest of Uptown deals with.
Why Audubon roofs fail the way they do
Three things we see repeatedly on this stock — not a generic list, and not the same three as the next neighborhood over.
Long-run fixings
Extended slopes expose fixings to more thermal movement. Nail pops and lifted courses show up mid-run, not at the edges.
Tile slippage
Clay tile on a large roof shifts over decades. A handful of displaced tiles opens the underlayment to driven rain.
Gutter capacity
A big roof in a 63-inch-a-year rainfall city overwhelms undersized guttering, and the overflow lands at the foundation.
Keeping a historic roof rather than losing it
A slate or clay tile roof that is shedding units is usually not finished. It is usually telling you something specific, and the specific answer is cheaper than the general one.
- Establish what is actually failing. On most historic roofs the slate outlives the copper. Valleys, step flashing and gutter linings go first, and the symptom presents as a slate problem.
- Match rather than substitute. Replacement slates are matched on color, size and thickness; tile is sourced to profile. The HDLC and the VCC both treat a visible mismatch as a change to the building, not a repair to it.
- Check the fixings, not just the units. Nail fatigue is what makes a slate roof start dropping slates at random rather than in one area. That is a re-fixing job, not a re-roofing job.
- Respect the deck. Original plank decking under a century-old slate roof behaves differently from modern sheathing, and modern underlayment has to be specified to suit it.
- Document for review. Before-and-after photographs and a written material schedule are what a historic-district review actually wants to see.
What the commissions will not accept
Design guidance for the local historic districts is explicit that standing seam metal is typically not an appropriate material to replace asphalt, slate or asbestos roofing. Traditional slate and clay tile are supported for restoration, and modern substitutes are permitted only where they match in material and color. If a contractor proposes stripping your slate for metal because it is quicker, that is a review problem as well as a preservation one.
A re-roofing permit is required in Orleans Parish — and three different commissions may review it
Residential re-roofing permits are applied for through the Department of Safety and Permits. Properties inside a historic district require additional review time before the permit is issued.
Four stages, no surprises
Inspection
Someone goes onto the roof. Not a drive-by, not a satellite image — the covering, the flashing, the valleys and the deck condition, looked at directly.
Diagnosis
What has failed and why, traced to the actual entry point rather than the spot where water shows up inside.
Written scope
What we found, what we propose, and what it costs, in writing with photographs. No number quoted cold over the phone.
The work
Carried out to the agreed scope, dried in each day, site cleared, and documented for your records and your insurer.
Working around Audubon Park, Audubon Zoo, Tulane University and the surrounding streets. If your address is in Audubon, it is in the service area — there is no travel surcharge anywhere inside Orleans Parish.
Slate & Tile Roof Restoration near Audubon
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Slate & Tile Roof Restoration in Audubon — straight answers
Can my slate roof be repaired rather than replaced?
Usually, yes. Slate is one of the few coverings where individual units genuinely can be replaced, and a roof dropping the occasional slate is more often telling you the fixings or the copper valleys are tired than that the slate itself is finished.
Can I put metal on instead? It is cheaper.
Not in a local historic district, in most cases. Design guidance is explicit that standing seam metal is typically not an appropriate replacement for asphalt, slate or asbestos roofing in these districts. Traditional slate and clay tile are supported for restoration, and substitutes have to match in material and color.
How do you match a slate or tile that is no longer made?
On color, size and thickness for slate, and on profile for tile, sourcing salvaged or matched stock rather than putting the nearest available item on the roof. A visible mismatch is treated by the HDLC and the VCC as a change to the building rather than a repair to it.
My roof is large — will you quote per square or for the whole job?
For the whole job, in writing, after someone has been on the roof. Per-square pricing quoted over the phone is where large-roof jobs go wrong, because it assumes the decking, the flashing and the valley metal are all in the condition the caller thinks they are. On a roof this size that assumption is expensive when it turns out to be wrong.
Slate & Tile Roof Restoration in Audubon?
Call and we will get someone on the roof, then put what we find in writing.