Q: Cory, you’ve worked on over 300 roofs across Orange and Seminole Counties. If you had to rank the most common roofing problems you actually find on Orlando homes — not the generic Florida list, but what you actually see — what tops it?
Cory: Age-related deterioration is number one, and it’s not close. Orange County went through an enormous growth period in the 1980s and 1990s — communities all over east Orlando, Maitland, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, parts of Winter Park — were built out during that era. A lot of those roofs are the original installation or first replacement. They’re 20, 25, sometimes 30 years old. Florida’s UV exposure and heat cycling has been working on those shingles for decades, the granule coverage is gone on the south and west slopes, the underlayment is original and long past its service life. When a storm comes through and lifts a few shingles on one of those roofs, the damage is really just the visible tip of a much larger deterioration problem that’s been building for years. That’s what I find more than anything else — roofs that look marginal from the street and are much worse on close inspection.

Q: Talk about the insurance situation in Orange County specifically. You have direct relationships with adjusters — what are you seeing in terms of what’s driving claims and non-renewals right now?
Cory: The non-renewal situation is significant in Orange County right now. Insurers are doing aerial and satellite inspections of roofs and sending non-renewal notices on anything that shows visible aging, staining, or deterioration from above. The threshold has moved — some carriers are non-renewing on roofs that are 12 to 15 years old even without obvious storm damage, because at that age in Florida’s climate, the actuarial risk has reached a point where they’d rather exit than carry the exposure. I’ve helped homeowners in the Windermere area, in the Dr. Phillips corridor, in Winter Garden — all over Orange County — restore coverage after non-renewals by replacing their roof with a properly documented installation. The adjuster relationships matter here because I know how to present a completed replacement in the format that supports a favorable underwriting decision and a wind mitigation discount. That’s knowledge that comes from years of working both sides of this process.

Q: Orlando’s housing stock is varied — you’ve got 1980s ranch homes, 1990s production builds, newer master-planned communities, historic neighborhoods. Do different housing eras have different roofing problems?
Cory: Absolutely, and this is something the generic roofing articles never address. The 1980s and early 1990s homes in east Orlando, College Park, and the older Winter Park neighborhoods have two specific issues I see consistently. First, original plywood decking that has absorbed decades of moisture from Florida’s humidity cycling — when I tear off a roof on one of these homes, I often find decking that’s soft, delaminated, or showing early rot in the areas around penetrations. Second, roof pitches from that era tend to be lower — four and five in twelve pitches were common — which means slower water drainage and more standing time for moisture on the shingle surface.

The 1990s to 2000s production builds in communities like Waterford Lakes, Hunters Creek, and Celebration have a different issue — those were built fast, often with the minimum code-compliant installation, and the roofing quality varied significantly by builder and by subcontractor. I find a lot of inconsistent nail patterns, inadequate flashing work, and installation shortcuts on those homes that create chronic leak points at the same locations across multiple homes in the same community.

The newer communities — Lake Nona, Horizon West, Laureate Park — are generally better installed but I do find quality variation there too. Production building moves fast and roofing crews are under schedule pressure. I’ve seen homes less than five years old with flashing issues that were there from day one.

Q: Wind damage in Orlando specifically — how does Central Florida’s storm pattern differ from the coast, and what does that mean for how roofs get damaged here?
Cory: Central Florida’s inland position creates a storm pattern that’s different from the Gulf or Atlantic coasts in a specific way — we get convective development. Storms build up over the land mass in summer from the heating differential between the coast and inland, and those convective storms can produce intense localized wind events that are very different from the broad wind fields of a landfalling hurricane. A convective downburst over Orlando can produce 60 to 70 mph winds in a very localized area while neighborhoods a mile away get moderate rain. Those downbursts come from unpredictable directions, which is why you’ll sometimes see a neighborhood where half the street had significant wind damage and the other half had nothing.

For roofs, this means the typical storm damage pattern in Orange County is more localized than what you see on the coast. I might find one slope of a roof with serious wind damage and the adjacent slopes untouched — because the downburst came from an unusual direction that hit that specific face of the roof with maximum force. That localized pattern is also what makes the documentation work important. An adjuster who doesn’t understand convective storm dynamics might look at a partially damaged roof and question why not all sections show damage. I know how to explain it.

Q: UV damage and heat — you mentioned granule loss on south and west slopes. How big a problem is this in the Orlando market specifically?
Cory: It’s the silent killer on Orlando roofs. UV degradation doesn’t announce itself with a leak — it works gradually, and by the time a homeowner notices something wrong, the damage has been accumulating for years. On roofs facing south or west, I routinely find granule coverage that’s 30 to 40% depleted on those slopes while the north-facing slopes still look relatively new. The granules are the UV protection for the asphalt beneath — once they’re gone, the asphalt itself starts oxidizing and becoming brittle, which accelerates cracking and brittleness across the whole shingle.

The practical implication is that a roof can look fine from the north side of the house and be in serious trouble on the south side. This is why I’m always skeptical when a homeowner tells me their roof looks okay — I want to see all four elevations. The south slope is almost always the most critical one on Central Florida homes and it’s the one you often can’t see from the street if the house is oriented a certain way.

Q: Algae and moisture — you see this constantly in Florida. Is there anything specific to the Orlando inland environment that makes this worse or different from coastal markets?
Cory: Orlando’s inland position actually makes the algae situation more variable than coastal markets. On the coast you have more consistent wind that keeps roof surfaces drier between rain events. Inland, the air is still for longer periods and the humidity is more persistent. In neighborhoods with mature tree canopy — I’m thinking of areas like College Park, the older parts of Winter Park near the lakes, and some of the Maitland neighborhoods — the shade from established oaks and other trees keeps roof surfaces moist for longer periods after rain. That’s the ideal algae growth environment and I see significantly more algae accumulation in those neighborhoods than in communities with open lots and younger landscaping.

The practical advice for homeowners in those shaded neighborhoods is simple: algae-resistant shingles with copper granules when it’s replacement time, and keep branches trimmed away from the roofline. Giving the roof surface more sun exposure and more airflow makes a meaningful difference in how fast algae reestablishes after cleaning.

Q: Flashing failures — you listed this as a leading cause of leaks. What’s specific to Orlando homes in terms of where flashing fails most often?
Cory: The two most consistent failure points I find on Orange County homes are plumbing stack boots and the flashing around HVAC equipment on the roof. Plumbing stack boots — the rubber boots that seal around where plumbing pipes come through the roof — are a rubber product in Florida’s UV environment. They crack and deteriorate. On a 15-year-old home I expect to find at least one boot that’s cracked and potentially allowing water in, and on older homes it’s almost certain. The good news is this is an inexpensive repair when caught early. The bad news is homeowners don’t think to have it checked because it’s not something visible from the ground.

HVAC flashing is the other one. A lot of Orlando homes have rooftop HVAC units or penetrations for mini-split systems, and the flashing around those units takes more stress than standard penetration points because of the vibration from the equipment. I find lifted and separated flashing on HVAC installations regularly — particularly on 1990s production homes where the installation quality wasn’t high to begin with.

Q: Attic ventilation — this comes up in almost every roofing discussion. What specifically do you find on Orlando homes and why does it matter so much here?
Cory: Attic ventilation is chronically inadequate on a significant percentage of the Orlando homes I work on, and it matters here more than almost anywhere because of what Florida’s heat does to an unventilated attic. On a 95-degree Orlando summer day, an inadequately ventilated attic can reach 150 to 160 degrees. That heat transfers through the roof decking and accelerates shingle deterioration from underneath — the same UV damage that happens on top, but from below, and it happens year-round. Homeowners never think about this because they never go in the attic in summer, but I can tell you from getting into those spaces to inspect them that the temperature difference between a well-ventilated attic and a poorly ventilated one is dramatic.

The other ventilation issue I see on older Orange County homes is inadequate soffit ventilation — the vents are there but they’ve been blocked by insulation that was added over the years without anyone checking whether it was covering the soffit vents. I’ve found attics where the entire soffit vent run was blocked by insulation pushed up against the eaves during an energy retrofit. The ventilation system was completely non-functional and the homeowner had no idea.

Q: For a homeowner who’s lived in their Orlando home for 10 years and has never had a professional roof inspection — what are the signs they should be looking for right now?
Cory: Four things to check without getting on the roof. First, walk the perimeter of the house and look at your gutters and downspout areas. If you see granules — coarse gritty material, usually black or the color of your shingles — that’s shingle surface deterioration and it warrants a professional inspection. Second, use your phone camera to zoom in on the south and west facing slopes. Look for color variation — sections that look lighter or more faded than the rest of the roof are areas where the granule coverage is depleted. Third, go into your attic on a hot afternoon and feel the temperature near the ridge. It should be warm but not shockingly hot. If it’s uncomfortably hot in a way that makes you want to leave immediately, your ventilation is likely inadequate. Fourth, look at your ceiling throughout the house for any brown or yellow staining. Water staining on ceilings in Florida doesn’t always mean an active leak — it can be historic, from a leak that sealed itself when conditions changed. But any staining is worth investigating.

Q: Last question — if you could tell every Orlando homeowner one thing about maintaining their roof that most of them don’t know, what would it be?
Cory: That the south slope of their roof is aging faster than the rest of the roof and most of them have never looked at it. In Orange County, the south-facing slope gets the maximum UV exposure year-round — no seasonal variation the way northern states get. By year 10 on a standard architectural shingle installation, I can often see meaningful granule depletion on the south slope while the north slope looks nearly new. By year 15, the difference is dramatic. The homeowner looks at their roof from the street, which typically gives them the view of one or two slopes, decides it looks fine, and doesn’t think about it. Meanwhile the south slope is working toward failure. The south slope of an Orlando home is the one that needs the most attention and it’s almost always the least visible from street level. Have a professional look at it. That’s the single most valuable thing a ten-year Orlando homeowner can do.