What is terracotta tile roof?
Terracotta is a type of ceramic pottery. Terracotta is famously durable as well. It’s often used for pipes, bricks, and sculptures. Terracotta tile is made by baking terracotta clay, and its colour is a natural brown-orange. Terracotta tile roof is very common in Australia because it has lots of benefits as a kind of rooftop material.
1. Hardwearing Endurance
Long lasting durability when installed correctly
2. Colour Retention
Looks as bright and colourful as the day it was built
3. Salt Safe & Frost Resistant
Can handle whatever the elements throw at them, including salt and frost
4. Thermal Performance
Maintain the temperature inside at a comfortable level
Disadvantages of terracotta title roof
While tiles have many advantages, solar installers hate them because installing solar panels on this roof is several times harder than on a tin roof.
We all know that to fix the feet on the tin roof, you only need to drive screws into the original screw holes. Whereas for tiled roofs, the position of the roof timber needs to be measured firstly as it is not obvious, then it is necessary to process the tiles in those positions.
If your roof is not big enough to put your panels in portrait, it will take longer time and labour when you have to put panels in landscape. Due to the over locking lap of the terracotta tile, we need to cut slots off more out of the terracotta and use landscape brackets.
Landscape brackets have a 90° angle twist on them so they are different from the normal ones. Thus, installers can mount rail in portrait so as to put panels in Landscape.
Cracking or breaking easily is another issue.
To be honest, this will definitely be annoying when you install solar panels and the tiles are damaged, but don’t worry, professional installers will replace or repair them for you.
Usually the surface of the tiles is also covered with moss, which is very slippery and makes the work more difficult, so special care should be taken.
Some roofs have leaf mesh fence that keeps the leaves out, which will also lead to longer installation time.
