SERVICE AREA / GILBERT, AZ

Roofing in Gilbert
is most of a town
aging at once.

Gilbert, once known as the Hay Capital of the World, had under 6,000 people in 1980. By 2010 it held over 208,000. About six in ten Gilbert homes were roofed inside one twenty-year window, 1990 to 2009, and that window is now closing.

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A USEFUL FIRST QUESTION

“If my neighbors are replacing roofs, what does that say about mine?”

01 / WHEN GILBERT WAS BUILT

From 5,717 people
to 208,453 in
thirty years.

Gilbert incorporated in 1920 and stayed a farming town for most of a century. Then it became, for a decade, the fastest-growing municipality of its size in the United States.

Recorded figures for Gilbert by census year
1980	5,717
1990	29,188
2000	109,697
2010	208,453
2020	267,918

Between 2000 and 2010 Gilbert was the fastest-growing incorporated place in the country among populations over 100,000, growing 90 percent in ten years. It had 93,230 housing units at the 2020 census.

Gilbert’s housing is more concentrated in time than older valley cities such as Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe, and that has a practical consequence: roofs here come due in waves rather than gradually.

02 / ACROSS THE CITY

Not every
part of Gilbert
is the same age.

The Heritage District

The original downtown and the streets around it

The pre-boom town. A small amount of genuinely old housing that has nothing in common with the tracts and should not be assessed as though it does.

The 1980s and 1990s communities

Val Vista Lakes and the other areas that built first, from the mid-1980s on

Early boom housing, roughly 27 to 40 years old. The first Gilbert roofs to come due, and a good many already have.

The 2000s south and east

The growth toward SanTan Village and beyond

The largest share of the town, around 22 years old. Tile in good condition over underlayment approaching or at the end of its life.

The agricultural edge

The remaining larger lots at the town boundary

Older properties and outbuildings on bigger parcels, often with a mix of roof systems of different ages on the same site. These are assessed building by building rather than as one roof.

03 / WHAT THE ROOFS ARE MADE OF

What you
tend to find
in Gilbert.

Concrete tile, on almost everything

The boom built in tile and very little else. This is as close to a single-material town as the valley has, which is precisely why its roofs are all arriving at the same question together.

Builder-grade underlayment beneath it

Large tracts built at speed were rarely specified with premium underlayment. What went down met code at the lowest cost, and it has now had two decades of sun above it.

Low-slope on patios and casitas

Common across the newer communities. Smaller areas, but they are the parts most often overlooked at re-roof time and they need a system suited to low slope.

04 / WHAT SHOWS UP HERE

The patterns
worth knowing
about.

Whole streets on the same clock.

Identical houses built the same year with the same underlayment fail on a similar schedule. In Gilbert this is unusually pronounced, and a neighbor’s roof is genuinely useful information about yours.

Builder-grade materials reaching their limit.

The underlayment specified across these tracts was adequate rather than generous. Adequate has a shorter number attached to it, and that number is now behind most of the town.

Tile that is entirely reusable.

The good news in Gilbert. Concrete tile from the boom is generally sound, so the right scope is often to lift it, replace what is beneath, and put the same tile back.

05 / WHAT CHANGES THE PRICE

Why two quotes
can differ by
thousands.

Whether you are buying tile again

On most Gilbert houses you are not, or should not be. The tile is fine. A proposal pricing all-new tile on a sound roof is the difference between a large number and a much smaller one.

The underlayment you specify

This is the one place worth spending. The cheap option is what is already failing on your roof. A longer-rated underlayment costs more now and resets the clock considerably further out.

Timing against your street

When several houses in one community re-roof in the same period, scheduling is tighter across the trade. That is an argument for deciding early rather than in the middle of a monsoon season.

07 / GILBERT QUESTIONS

Common ones.

Three houses on my street have had roof work. Should I be worried?

Not worried, but you should look. Gilbert built so fast that neighboring houses frequently share a build year, a builder and an underlayment specification. When several come due at once, that is the specification reaching its age, not a coincidence.

Do I need new tile, or just what is under it?

Usually just what is under it, though the roof has to be assessed rather than assumed. If your tile is sound, a proposal that prices all-new tile is selling you something you may not need. Ask for both scopes and the reasoning behind the recommendation.

My house is from 2006. Is it too early to bother?

Not too early to look. At around 20 years you are inside the window where underlayment starts to go, and finding out now is considerably cheaper than finding out through a ceiling.

Does the HOA have a say in what I can do?

Often, on appearance. Many Gilbert communities specify tile profile and color. It rarely restricts what goes underneath, which is where the actual decision lies, but confirm before anything is ordered.

Is it worth paying more for better underlayment?

On a roof where the tile is staying, yes, and this is the clearest case for it. The labor of lifting and re-laying tile is the same whichever underlayment goes down, so the upgrade buys years for a relatively small share of the total.

What if my roof turns out to be fine?

Then you have that in writing and a date to look again. We would rather tell you the roof has five years left than sell you a replacement it does not need, and an assessment that concludes nothing is wrong is a legitimate outcome.