Barrel tile restoration in Ybor City
A 1911 Ybor City building where the barrel tile had to be salvaged, catalogued and relaid. The roof performs like new and still looks its age, which was the point.
01. The Challenge
A 1911 brick building in Ybor City under historic district review, with an original barrel tile roof that had been patched with mismatched replacements over decades. Several courses had slipped and water was tracking into the top-floor masonry.
Nothing could be substituted. The review board required the original clay profile retained, and the tile has not been manufactured in that form for the better part of a century.
02. What we did
We stripped the affected slopes by hand, catalogued and stored every sound tile, replaced the failed batten and underlayment beneath, and relaid the original tile with salvaged stock sourced from a reclamation yard for the pieces beyond saving.
- Full moisture survey of the existing deck
- Phased installation around tenant operations
- Daily photo log shared with the owner
- Single project manager, single phone number
- County inspection booked before tear-off began
03. The Result
The board approved the work without modification, and the top-floor damp stopped within one wet season.
From the street the roof looks exactly as it did before, which was the whole point. Underneath it is a modern underlayment system with another fifty years in it.
