Metal Roofing in New Iberia, LA — Insured

Roofing in New Iberia, LA

The single most useful line in the federal record for this town concerns metal. Describing Hurricane Gustav on 1 September 2008, the National Weather Service wrote that the hardest hit area in Iberia Parish was New Iberia and that some homes with metal roofs had them peeled back, with at least 23,000 customers losing power in an event assessed at around $100 million parish-wide.

Peeled back is a fastening failure, not a material failure. Exposed-fastener panels lift at the eave when the screw pattern is too sparse or the screws have backed off, and standing seam lifts when the clip spacing was designed for a lower wind exposure than the house actually sees. We specify clip and screw spacing on every metal job here and we put it in the written scope.

New Iberia is the largest town we serve outside Lafayette, with 13,546 housing units. Fifty-seven percent predate 1980, the median build year is 1975, and vacancy runs near sixteen percent. Forty-three percent of households heat with utility gas.

The wind record is dense and specific. On 14 December 2022 an EF2 tornado touched down southwest of town and tracked northeast along the southeastern edge of New Iberia, damaging roughly twenty to twenty-five mobile homes, with a satellite tornado confirmed from video. On 4 April 2019 thunderstorm winds estimated at 93 miles per hour snapped or downed numerous trees near Olivier.

Surge is a separate matter and it has to be kept separate. During Hurricane Ike in September 2008 a seven to eight foot storm surge, comparable to Rita in 2005, put water into homes and businesses along and south of Highway 14 and Highway 90 including the Port of Iberia, with over a thousand homes flooded. Flood peril is excluded from the policy that covers your roof, and an honest inspection has to begin there.

New Iberia holds jurisdiction credential J.01427 with the state code commission and it has an unusual ordinance: the city separately adopted the 1993 Standard for Hurricane Resistant Residential Construction, SSTD 10-93, as criteria for the design and repair of residential housing. Its permit page says a permit must be obtained for any and all work, while its own list of permitted work does not mention roofing.

What we would tell an owner in the East Main Street Historic District and nobody in a new subdivision: your roof probably has more than one historically appropriate answer and only one correct assembly beneath it. Slate, tile and heavy-profile shingle all need the deck and the underlayment sorted first, and a beautiful covering over a saturated deck is an expensive way to fail twice.