Barrel tile

The shape comes first. Eagle Roofing Products describes its high barrel tiles as “semi-cylindrical shaped and the most traditionally recognized of all tile profiles,” and its 2017 article says they emulate “the authentic look of Spanish clay tile found in the Old World.” Then the way the row is laid. InterNACHI's tile roof inspection course says tiles in the same course may overlap, such as barrel tiles, and that overlapping tiles “may be pan tiles with a two-piece pan and cover, or may be flat tiles.” It adds that “Pan tiles are half-cylinders” in shape.

InterNACHI's description stops short of one picture of a barrel roof. It gives barrel tiles as its example of tiles that overlap, and it says overlapping tiles may be a two-piece pan and cover, with half-cylinder pans, or may be flat tiles. It does not say that every barrel roof is laid as a pan and cover. How a particular roof's tiles are laid is shown in the tile maker's product literature or settled by a roofing contractor.

Overlap is also what separates a barrel tile from an interlocking tile in InterNACHI's vocabulary, since the course gives S-tiles as its example of tiles that interlock. Eagle, meanwhile, calls its high barrel an S-tile. That naming conflict is laid out on the S-tile page rather than settled here.

A barrel tile is not one height. Eagle's article on choosing a barrel concrete roof tile says a buyer will find “two profile options to choose from: high and medium barrel.” The figures below are Eagle's, for its own concrete profiles, and they do not describe another maker's tile.

Eagle calls the medium option “a more modern version of the S-tile and sometimes referred to as an M-tile.” InterNACHI's course, sorting shapes rather than a catalog, says “High-profile tiles are typically barrel tiles.” Typically is the course's own hedge, and the measured band with a rise and a ratio is defined under high-profile tile.

Barrel height is a measurement of the tile. The steepness of the roof under it is another measurement entirely, described by roof pitch and slope, which ARMA's asphalt roofing manual and the Florida tile manual define in different units. OSHA's construction standard draws the line for a low-slope roof by incline alone, and its definition does not mention the covering.

The name leaves cleaning questions open too. Whether a soft wash suits a curved profile, and what the tile maker publishes about cleaning it, is answered under soft washing a barrel tile roof, and the roof cleaning page sets out what tile, shingle and metal makers say about cleaning side by side. Whether a concrete barrel tile roof has to be cleaned before a coating goes on is covered in cleaning a roof before it is coated or painted.

What the name does not supply is a count. None of these sources says how many roofs carry barrel tile, and which profile a particular roof has is a question for the tile's maker or a roofing contractor.