Clay, concrete, composite and synthetic tile. Natural and synthetic slate. Wood and synthetic shake. This is the work we are best known for, and the work most roofers in this market will not quote.
This is one of ours, photographed during the install and again on completion. Tile is slow, expensive to get wrong, and the reason a lot of roofers will not quote it.
Tile and slate are expensive materials, the installation is slow, and mistakes are costly to put right. Most roofing companies in this market decline the work rather than take the risk. The owner is direct about why we do not: I just knew how to install it, so it never was a thing. I never thought twice about it.
Champion Roofing is a DaVinci Masterpiece contractor and won the DaVinci Project of the Year award twice, in 2021 for the Donald W. Reynolds Complex at Bethany Children's Health Center and again in 2023 for Gaillardia Office Park.
We were also the first company in Oklahoma to install Brava synthetic roofing. The product's founder came out to a church project to show our crew how it was done, and by the end of the job our crew were showing him.
Six specialty material families, each with different structural and detailing requirements.
The traditional Mediterranean and Spanish profile. Beautiful, heavy, brittle, and entirely dependent on what sits underneath it.
Similar profiles and appearance to clay with different weight and cost characteristics. Common across the metro.
Lighter and considerably less brittle than natural material, which matters on structures not designed for the load. DaVinci, Brava and Grand Manor among others.
The traditional material on older and higher end properties. Long lived and completely unforgiving of a rushed installation.
The appearance of slate with a fraction of the weight. Frequently the right answer on a structure that cannot carry natural stone.
The traditional shake appearance, in natural cedar or in a synthetic product that removes the maintenance and fire considerations.
The visible part of a tile roof is the least important part of it. What decides whether it performs for decades is entirely underneath, and invisible the moment the last tile is set.
On a tile roof the underlayment does far more work than it does under asphalt. Tile sheds the bulk of the water, but wind driven rain gets underneath it routinely, and the underlayment is what actually keeps the building dry.
Tile has to be secured against Oklahoma wind loads without cracking the material or creating a path for water. Every hip, valley, wall junction and penetration is then flashed in metal and detailed by hand. On a complex tile roof there are a great many of these.
A lot of our specialty work is repair rather than installation, and the hard part is matching: finding product close enough to what is there that the repair does not read as a patch from the street. We maintain specialty roofs in Nichols Hills, Gaillardia, Rose Creek, Cobblestone and Heritage Hills.
The things people ask when they have a roof most contractors will not touch.
Because it is expensive and unforgiving. In the owner's words: not many companies want to do this work, because it costs a lot and a mistake is a big deal.
That is genuinely the situation. Tile and slate materials cost a great deal more than asphalt, the install is slower, and errors are expensive to correct. It is also why there is not much competition for this work in the metro, and why we do a lot of it.
Almost everything that matters happens before the tile goes down. Underlayment, batten layout and fastening determine whether the roof performs, and the flashing at every hip, valley and penetration has to be detailed by hand rather than filled with sealant.
Tile is also heavy and brittle. Walking it incorrectly damages it, so how the crew moves on the roof during the install is part of the method rather than an afterthought.
Clay, concrete, composite and synthetic tile. Natural slate and synthetic slate. Wood shake and synthetic shake.
We are a DaVinci Masterpiece contractor and we work with Brava and Grand Manor products among others. Champion Roofing was the first company in Oklahoma to install Brava synthetic roofing.
Frequently, yes, and it is a large part of what we do on these roofs. The difficulty is usually matching: finding a product that matches the existing roof closely enough that the repair does not read as a patch from the street.
We maintain specialty roofs in Nichols Hills, Gaillardia, Rose Creek, Cobblestone and Heritage Hills, so this is routine work for us rather than an unusual request.
For a lot of applications it is the better choice, which is why it has become so common on the higher end streets around the metro. Synthetic products are lighter than clay, concrete or natural slate, which matters on structures that were not designed for the load, and they are considerably less brittle.
They are not identical to natural material and some people prefer the real thing. That is a genuine preference rather than a technical argument, and we install both.
Yes. The owner met the product's founder, who came out to a church project intending to demonstrate the installation, and by the end of it our crew had worked out the method and were showing him.
It was a difficult install and the crew kept at it until they had it right. That is roughly how specialty work goes here.
Most contractors in this market will not quote one. We will come and look at it, and the assessment costs nothing.
