# Tile roof maintenance



## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

Warning : boring thread... (but related to living in Mexico  )

I'll throw my problem out there and maybe someone has an idea.

We are currently servicing our vigas. The vigas are all rectangular and immediately on top of them are flat clay tiles perhaps 1" X 12" X 18" - terra cota in color. Between those flat tiles and the barrel tiles are several other layers of tiles/bricks/cement.

So - in several places the flat tiles have the white salt areas (siletra ?). I asked and was told to scrape off the tiles, seal them and then apply terra cota impermeazante. Well I started on a small area on the second story - and when I came down to the ground to see how it looked I realized my mistake. The impermeazante is much too red - and I had no intention of repainting all the roof tiles.

I have to guess that the roof tiles were NEVER painted and only sealed - probably with Fester bond. So now I figure I have to run out to home depot and have them mix up some paint to match what was there that I can apply over the red paint and then maybe reseal that.

Any thoughts ?


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

chuck846 said:


> Warning : boring thread... (but related to living in Mexico  ) I'll throw my problem out there and maybe someone has an idea. We are currently servicing our vigas. The vigas are all rectangular and immediately on top of them are flat clay tiles perhaps 1" X 12" X 18" - terra cota in color. Between those flat tiles and the barrel tiles are several other layers of tiles/bricks/cement. So - in several places the flat tiles have the white salt areas (siletra ?). I asked and was told to scrape off the tiles, seal them and then apply terra cota impermeazante. Well I started on a small area on the second story - and when I came down to the ground to see how it looked I realized my mistake. The impermeazante is much too red - and I had no intention of repainting all the roof tiles. I have to guess that the roof tiles were NEVER painted and only sealed - probably with Fester bond. So now I figure I have to run out to home depot and have them mix up some paint to match what was there that I can apply over the red paint and then maybe reseal that. Any thoughts ?


My suggestion is to clean the salitre, what are you using for that? Perhaps sodium bicarbonate diluted in water
Then seal them with 5x1, you can get it at any comex store
Make a thick mix, 4 parts of water and 1 part 5x1 , let the tiles dry and install them


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

GARYJ65 said:


> My suggestion is to clean the salitre, what are you using for that? Perhaps sodium bicarbonate diluted in water
> Then seal them with 5x1, you can get it at any comex store
> Make a thick mix, 4 parts of water and 1 part 5x1 , let the tiles dry and install them


Thank you Gary. 

I have been using Comex Sellador Alkafin
Salitre
but I have been using it full-strength - which can get expensive.

And as for cleaning away the salitre - I had only been using a wire brush - I'll give sodium bicarbonate a try.

Some impressions I've picked up :
Sayer Lack is the place to go for stains.
Comex is the place to go for paints (Vinimex) and varnish (River Spar Marino)
Fester is the place of impermeabilizante.

When it comes to selladors I'm not sure if Comex or Fester is better. I have had very good results with Fester Bond.


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

chuck846 said:


> Thank you Gary. I have been using Comex Sellador Alkafin Salitre but I have been using it full-strength - which can get expensive. And as for cleaning away the salitre - I had only been using a wire brush - I'll give sodium bicarbonate a try. Some impressions I've picked up : Sayer Lack is the place to go for stains. Comex is the place to go for paints (Vinimex) and varnish (River Spar Marino) Fester is the place of impermeabilizante. When it comes to selladors I'm not sure if Comex or Fester is better. I have had very good results with Fester Bond.


You may as well use festerbond, very diluted to seal those tejas, It will work too


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

GARYJ65 said:


> You may as well use festerbond, very diluted to seal those tejas, It will work too


Dilluted with what?

Bicarbonato de Sodio which I got at a Farmacia but would be much cheaper in bulk.

My whole roof is flat tiles that I sealed with selicrete (sp) but was still leaking. Finally followed with white impermeabilizante with the material around corners and thru holes.

Used an expensive sealer on my steps up to second floor because couldn't use impermeabilizante.

A few sloped awnings with only tiles aree just sealed and clear


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

sparks said:


> Dilluted with what?
> 
> Bicarbonato de Sodio which I got at a Farmacia but would be much cheaper in bulk.
> 
> ...


Both Fester and Comex say to mix with water. Festerbond says either 1:1 or 1:2
Fester - Festerbond

Sodium Bicarbonate is Arm & Hammer baking soda. Walmart has good sized boxes.

I Wonder if there is a name for the construction style of our roofing. On top of the vigas are the flat tiles. On top of those is an inch or so of concrete. Then (going up) there is a layer of 3" thick bricks. Then another layer of concreate. Then another layer of flat tiles. On top of those is a very thin layer of impermabilizante fabric and then there are the barrel tiles. I'm amazed that we have spots of salitre - but our roof is 18 years old. That is the sloped areas.

On the flat areas we have rather thick red impermabilizante fabric.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

chuck846 said:


> I Wonder if there is a name for the construction style of our roofing. On top of the vigas are the flat tiles. On top of those is an inch or so of concrete. Then (going up) there is a layer of 3" thick bricks. Then another layer of concreate. Then another layer of flat tiles. On top of those is a very thin layer of impermabilizante fabric and then there are the barrel tiles. I'm amazed that we have spots of salitre - but our roof is 18 years old. That is the sloped areas.
> 
> On the flat areas we have rather thick red impermabilizante fabric.


That roof sounds like a meter+ thick. Mine is a "standard" cement pour but needed a slope for runoff. Picked a mid-point to add 3 inches and sloped down to the edges. Tiles went on top covered by a cement wash. That still leaked a bit and was not strong for foot traffic. Then the impermabilizante. My only viga is inside in the one large room


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

sparks said:


> That roof sounds like a meter+ thick. Mine is a "standard" cement pour but needed a slope for runoff. Picked a mid-point to add 3 inches and sloped down to the edges. Tiles went on top covered by a cement wash. That still leaked a bit and was not strong for foot traffic. Then the impermabilizante. My only viga is inside in the one large room


Our 'roof' is between 7" and 9" thick depending on if you count the cement under the barrel tiles on top. Only because we are about 3/4 of the way through filling/sanding/treating/carnishing the parts of the vigas exposed to the weather - we have roughly 162 vigas - give or take. The core of the house is one giant viga perhaps 20" X 12" or so. Everything pretty much radiates off that. That must have been one pretty big tree. The good/bad news is it appears we have some termite damage to the end of one of the vigas. I hope that doesn't turn into a major project. I'm ready for a vacation.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Wooden viga ??? No wood in my house. A palapa and a garage have wood .... but not the house

My viga is a "viga falsa" because it was originally designed to slope to one side. We built a wire cage to make it look level and then stuccoed it

I like the look of barrel tiles on other peoples houses. For painting above or roof repair ..... a real pain


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

sparks said:


> Wooden viga ??? No wood in my house. A palapa and a garage have wood .... but not the house
> 
> My viga is a "viga falsa" because it was originally designed to slope to one side. We built a wire cage to make it look level and then stuccoed it
> 
> I like the look of barrel tiles on other peoples houses. For painting above or roof repair ..... a real pain


Our house is almost all wood/tile/cement. It is nice that the last owner replaced all the windows and external doors with double-pane glass and wood-like aluminum frames.

I suspect you get much stronger winds than we do - although at times it can get very gusty. We just had to remove a section of tiles to get at the vigas on the second story - they are not secured to the roof (easy to remove/replace). Quite unlike 'code' in South Florida


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Yes, we do get good winds here. Melaque was on the outer edge of hurricane Patricia that came in late last year. Catagory Five blew paint off a few walls, still have leaves and palapa pieces stuck to walls.

The government and religeous help groups must have spent millions reeplacing lamina roofs and new matresses. Changed our whole skyline with all the downed or broken trees. 

Worst recorded storm to hit the west coast. Never heard a howling wind like that before. I could only guess at the speed but well over 100


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

sparks said:


> Yes, we do get good winds here. Melaque was on the outer edge of hurricane Patricia that came in late last year. Catagory Five blew paint off a few walls, still have leaves and palapa pieces stuck to walls.
> 
> The government and religeous help groups must have spent millions reeplacing lamina roofs and new matresses. Changed our whole skyline with all the downed or broken trees.
> 
> Worst recorded storm to hit the west coast. Never heard a howling wind like that before. I could only guess at the speed but well over 100


We spent 30+ years in South Florida. Lived through Andrew and Wilma and a lot of names I don't remember. One storm - in big, modern, first world South Florida - we were without power for 16 days (and we had to wait for the Canadian power workers to restore power) ! The gas stations couldn't pump gas. Since then they mandated that gas stations and supermarkets needed to install generators. For us - the worst storms didn't even have names - and got no national notice/help. We had a cyclone (related to a hurricane) come up the canal we lived on and took a chunk of our roof with it.

In a small way that may be why we settled at 5900 feet this go round. But some day when maintaining the house gets to be too much - and we have fewer cats - I'd like to buy a box on the beach and just veg out in the sun.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

I lived in St Petersburg a 1/2 block from the bay and never got hit with a big one. Passing by in the gulf dumping 11 inches in 12 hours makes the sea level rise. Pinellas County is only 26 feet above sea level and that makes you think

Here we worry more about run-off from the mountains ..... or a tsunami from and earthquake


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