New Tile or a Relay?
How One Etiwanda Homeowner Decided

The Default Answer Is Usually a Relay

Concrete tile lasts a long time. Eagle rates its concrete tile for 75 years. The underlayment under it does not come close, and that is usually the part that fails. When the tile is still sound, the honest fix is a tile lift and relay: we lift your tile, replace the underlayment, and set the same tile back down. You keep the product you already paid for and replace the part that wore out. If someone quotes you all-new tile without checking whether yours can be reused, get a second look. More on that in Your Tile Is Good for 75 Years. Your Roof Is Not..

When New Tile Is the Right Call

There are good reasons to replace the tile itself:

• The tile is at the end of its life, cracked or chipped across the roof.
• It is a discontinued profile nobody can match, so repairs down the road get hard.
• You want the house to look different.

That last one is the Etiwanda job.

The Etiwanda House

The roof was an older Monier concrete tile, a profile that isn't made anymore. The homeowner wants a modern refresh that adds value to the home, and the house is getting painted too. A relay would have put the same look right back on top. New tile was the only way to change it, so this one is a tile replacement, with new Eagle concrete tile picked from the catalog. The whole job, step by step, is in From Discontinued Monier to New Eagle Tile.

The Waterproofing Is the Same Either Way

Here is the part that doesn't change. On a relay or a replacement, the old underlayment comes off down to the deck and new underlayment goes down before any tile does. On this job it is Westlake Royal TileSeal HT, a self-adhered peel and stick membrane. The difference is what goes back on top: your tile, or new tile.

That photo is a relay in Norco: same underlayment, and the homeowner's own tile stacked on the roof, waiting to go back down.

The Permit Is the Same Too

In Rancho Cucamonga, roof work over 400 square feet on a house needs a full reroof permit, and the city's own handout puts a lift and relay inside that threshold. So whichever way you go, it gets permitted and inspected. The details are on our Rancho Cucamonga page.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Is my tile cracked or chipped across the roof, or just old-looking?
• Do I like how the house looks, or am I about to change it with paint, windows or a remodel?
• Is my profile still made, if I ever need a few replacement pieces?