Slate & Tile Roof Restoration in Broadmoor, New Orleans
1920s bungalows in the lowest-lying bowl in the city. Drainage is the whole story here — where the water goes when it leaves your roof matters as much as whether the roof sheds it.
- Low-lying — drainage critical
- California bungalow stock
- Raised basements, settled foundations
Broadmoor building stock, and what it means for a roof
Broadmoor occupies a natural bowl between the ridges, and it is among the lowest ground in New Orleans — it flooded badly in 2005 and has flooded in ordinary heavy rainfall since. The housing is mostly 1910s to 1930s California bungalows, raised on the shallow raised basements typical of that era here, with the wide eaves and exposed rafter tails of the style.
Roofing in Broadmoor is a drainage problem as much as a covering problem. A roof that sheds water perfectly well into a gutter that discharges against a settled foundation is still causing damage. Ground settlement across the bowl has also racked some of these houses slightly over a century, which shows up as ridges that are no longer straight and valleys that no longer sit where the original builder put them.
Why Broadmoor 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.
Downspout discharge
Water leaving the roof correctly and landing against the foundation is the most common problem we find here, and the cheapest to fix.
Racked structure
Long-term settlement in the bowl pulls rooflines out of true. Coverings crack and open along the line of movement.
Wide-eave soffit rot
Bungalow eaves overhang deeply. Persistent humidity plus poor ventilation rots the soffit and rafter tails from below.
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 Napoleon Avenue, Broadmoor Arts & Wellness Center, Washington Avenue and the surrounding streets. If your address is in Broadmoor, it is in the service area — there is no travel surcharge anywhere inside Orleans Parish.
Slate & Tile Roof Restoration near Broadmoor
Everything else we do in Broadmoor
Slate & Tile Roof Restoration in Broadmoor — 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 seems fine but I keep getting damp at the base of the walls — is that the roof?
Possibly, indirectly. In Broadmoor the most common version of this is a roof draining correctly into guttering that then dumps the whole roof’s water within a foot of the foundation. In a low-lying bowl with a high water table, that water has nowhere to go. It is worth checking the discharge before assuming the covering has failed.
Slate & Tile Roof Restoration in Broadmoor?
Call and we will get someone on the roof, then put what we find in writing.