Ridge & Hip Tile Repair Across South Florida

Ridge and hip tile repair is the work we would rather do before hurricane season than after it. The ridge caps the peak of the roof and the hips run down its sloping outside corners. On most older South Florida tile roofs, both are bedded in mortar, and mortar is the part of a tile roof with the shortest service life.

When ridge mortar fails, two things follow. Water gets into the highest point of the roof, where it has the whole structure to travel through before it shows up on a ceiling. And the tiles themselves become loose objects at the most wind-exposed line on the building.

How to Tell Your Ridge Mortar Is Failing

• Sandy white or gray crumbs collecting in gutters, on the driveway, or in planting beds below the roofline
• Visible gaps or open joints along the peak, often easiest to see from an upstairs window of the house next door
• A ridge or hip tile that rocks or shifts when touched
• Hairline cracks running the length of the mortar joint rather than across it
• Interior staining near the peak of a vaulted ceiling, or in the attic along the ridge board

Why This Line Fails First

The ridge takes the most thermal movement on the roof. It heats fastest, cools fastest, and sits at the point where two planes of tile expand against each other. Rigid mortar between two moving surfaces cracks. Once it has cracked, wind-driven rain gets in behind it and washes the bed out from underneath.

Broward and Miami-Dade also sit inside the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, which is the most demanding wind region in the Florida Building Code. Attachment requirements at ridges and hips are stricter here than anywhere else in the state, and a mortar bed that has lost its grip does not meet them.

Re-Pointing Versus Re-Bedding

These two words get used interchangeably by contractors, and they are not the same job. The difference is worth understanding before you accept a quote.

Re-pointing means renewing the visible surface mortar in the joint. It is appropriate when the bed underneath is still sound and only the outer face has weathered.

Re-bedding means lifting the ridge and hip tiles off, removing the old mortar bed completely, and setting them back down on new material. It is the correct answer when the bed has washed out, when tiles are loose, or when the mortar is cracked through rather than just worn at the surface.

Re-pointing over a failed bed is a cosmetic repair sold as a structural one. It looks correct from the ground on the day it is finished, and the tiles are still loose underneath.

What We Use

Where a roof was originally mortar-bedded and the owner wants it kept that way, we re-bed in mortar. Where the goal is wind performance, the current approach in this region is a mechanically fastened ridge or a polyurethane foam adhesive system with a weatherblock closure, which holds better under uplift and does not wash out.

If your roof has ridge venting, that changes the detail again, and we will walk it with you rather than assuming.

Service Area

We repair ridge and hip tile in Hollywood, Davie, Cooper City, Weston, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Dania Beach, Pembroke Park, Miami Lakes, Coral Gables, Boca Raton and across Broward and Miami-Dade.