Scottsdale Roofing Contractor for Tile & Flat Roofs

Scottsdale roofs fail at the details, not the field

Scottsdale has three broad roof types. McCormick Ranch and the 1970s-era neighborhoods brought low-slope and hybrid roofs with long runs and interior drainage. The 1990s and 2000s subdivisions north of Shea are concrete tile on complicated rooflines with a lot of hips, valleys and roof-to-wall transitions. And the contemporary desert homes — Old Town infill, Troon, parts of North Scottsdale — are flat roofs behind parapet walls, where all the water has to leave through a scupper or a drain.

What they share is that the open field of the roof is rarely the problem. The problem is a parapet wall detail, a valley that's undersized for the water it collects, a scupper that's partly blocked, or a wall flashing that was sealed rather than integrated. On a simple gable roof those details barely exist. On these roofs there are dozens of them.

That's also why the visible symptom is so often far from the cause. Water gets in at a parapet corner, runs along the deck, and shows up on a ceiling in a different room entirely. If nobody traces it, the repair goes in the wrong place.

Common roof problems on Scottsdale homes

• Parapet wall and roof-to-wall flashing that was caulked instead of properly flashed
• Blocked or undersized scuppers and drains turning a flat roof into a pond
• Cracked tile on hips and valleys, often from foot traffic during solar or HVAC work
• Brittle underlayment under tile on 1990s and 2000s builds
• Debris from mature trees packing valleys and drains after a storm
• Shaded roof sections staying damp long after the rest has dried
• Skylight curbs and mechanical curbs that have dried out and opened
• Previous section repairs done in a mismatched or incompatible material

What we check that others tend to skip

On a Scottsdale roof we spend most of the inspection at the edges and the penetrations, because that's where the water is getting in. We check whether every scupper and drain actually carries water, whether the parapet flashing is tied into the wall or glued to it, and whether valley metal is sized for the area it's collecting.

We also look for work that was done to look finished rather than to be finished. Foam sprayed over a bad detail, mastic smeared across a seam, a tile set in adhesive because the fastener location was wrong. Those hold through a dry winter and fail in the first serious monsoon.

Then we photograph all of it and put it in a written itemized proposal, including anything we'd keep an eye on but wouldn't spend money on today. You should be able to see the reasoning, not just the number.