Roof Tiles: It’s All About Economy!

Our customers often ask about the price of our products! Price naturally matters to the buyer, as it affects the total cost of construction – but are the cheapest roof tiles also the most economical?

Could it be that by choosing “the cheapest tiles”, the buyer will end up having to dig deeper into their pocket?

For the tiles you choose for your new home to be economical, it is not enough for them to be simply “cheap”! Our partners often explain that they trust “Panagiotopoulos” roof tiles because they suffer zero breakage during transport and handling! When the pallet is opened, the roofer can use all the tiles purchased, unlike “cheap” tiles with half the bending strength, where many pieces have to be discarded as breakage.

And even if those tiles reach the site intact, there is an even tougher “test” they must pass: installation. Here “Panagiotopoulos” roof tiles, with their excellent structure, fit and strength, perform impeccably, allowing roofers to walk on them without breaking them and to complete the installation much faster and without waste.

Also, for special details and points where tiles need to be cut, the structure and thorough firing of “Panagiotopoulos” tiles allow fast, accurate cutting without cracking or crumbling.

In this way installation is completed quickly, and both the installation crew and the owner come out winners!

After construction, a technician will quite often need to go up on the roof for various jobs: a TV aerial, solar water heaters, a photovoltaic system, sometimes a fireplace chimney – there are always “odd jobs” in a building that require access to the roof!

Imagine, then, one or more tiles breaking during such work! Worse still, imagine them breaking without anyone noticing straight away!
In the first case you will have to pay for repairs; in the second, during rainfall, however good the waterproofing (which must be there – read more here!), rainwater is very likely to get into the underlying layers, damaging the timber parts of the roof and causing damp and corrosion in the horizontal/sloping structural elements of the building (slab, walls, etc.). This happens because the waterproofing is designed to remove any moisture that passes through the gaps between overlapping tiles, and cannot take on the role of the main roof covering!
The cost of repair in this case multiplies, since besides replacing the tiles, part of the roof may need to be stripped to repair further damage, and repairs may also be needed to other structural elements that have corroded due to the moisture!

Equally significant are the problems that can arise from deterioration due to the poor frost resistance of a “cheap” – but otherwise “good” – tile!
Tiles that are not well fired, or whose raw materials (types of clay) have not been selected with the necessary knowledge and attention to quality, have reduced resistance to the extreme frost conditions found in some areas.
In such cases, tiles begin to crumble and break, and partial or complete replacement of the roof is needed to avoid problems!

All this can of course be minimised – or avoided from the outset – by choosing the tiles with the market’s top bending strength, those that come with a written guarantee of unlimited duration for their bending strength, frost resistance and resistance to all adverse conditions.
However many years pass, you can be sure that with “Panagiotopoulos” roof tiles you have made the right choice, both in terms of quality and economy in your construction!

Panagiotopoulos S.A. has been certified to ISO 9001 for quality since 2000 and to ISO 14001 for environmental management since 2004, by the leading body TÜV Hellas (TÜV Nord Group). It has its own fully equipped testing, research and quality-control laboratory and employs highly qualified scientific staff for quality assurance, research and the development of innovative products (for roof tiles, the specifications of European standard EN 1304 are met and all its tests are carried out, while CE marking is applied).

For roof tiles in general, market prices range (roughly) from 10 to 12–13 euros per square metre.
So when you are asked to choose on the basis of cost, consider whether, for a difference of the order of 100 to 200 euros for the whole roof, you are sacrificing the protection of your home…