Tampa weather is brutal on roof shingles. The area gets well over 240 days of intense sunshine each year, and during the summer months, the UV index hits above 11 on most days (that's in the extreme category). When the air temperature reaches the mid-90s, the surface of your dark shingles can hit 160 degrees or higher. Combine that with roughly 80 days of thunderstorms each year and humidity levels that swing between 60% and 90% throughout the day, and your roofing materials take a beating all year long!
Tampa's brutal summers damage the shingles in a few ways, and the shingles curl when multiple factors work against your roof at once. UV radiation matters a lot because it breaks down the asphalt composition and speeds up the aging process for your entire roof. Attics without enough ventilation create another problem on their own - the trapped heat bakes your shingles from underneath and speeds up the deterioration. Day-to-day humidity changes force the roofing materials to expand and contract repeatedly, and this repeated cycle weakens the bonds holding everything together. As the years pass, the protective granules start to fall away and leave your shingles exposed to even more damage. Installation mistakes that might stay manageable in milder climates become serious problems once the extreme heat starts to stress every fastener and seal on your roof. When you know what makes them curl, you can fix the issue before a small problem grows into a big leak with an expensive repair bill attached to it.
Here's why those summer temperatures cause your shingles to curl up.
Tampa gets more than 240 days of sunshine every year, and for beach lovers, that probably sounds pretty close to perfect. All that relentless sun exposure is a different story for the roofs, though - it causes damage over time.
Tampa summers bring high UV levels - the kind that weather services officially rate as "extreme." The UV index scale tops out at 11, and we usually hit 11 or higher during the summer months. All that intense ultraviolet radiation breaks down the molecular bonds inside the asphalt material itself, and that's where the damage starts.
UV exposure is always working against your shingles, and day after day, it breaks down the asphalt until it starts to lose that flexibility it needs to work the way it should. The material gets brittle when it's supposed to stay soft and flexible enough for temperature changes and movement.
Temperature swings on your roof make this problem even worse, and we're talking about dramatic changes in a very short period of time. On a hot summer afternoon, the shingles can reach temperatures of around 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Later that same night, after the sun finally sets, they cool off by a large margin.
Roofers have a name for this process, and they call it thermal cycling. Your shingles expand when the sun heats them up during the day, and then they contract back down when everything cools off at night. This cycle repeats itself over and over again, and it puts a tremendous amount of stress on the material - especially since the UV rays are already making those same shingles more brittle at the same time. After enough of these heating and cooling cycles, your shingles just won't be able to flex the way they did when they were brand new - it's when you'll start to see the edges lift up and curl.
The UV rays and temperature swings work hand in hand to tear up your roof. The UV light slowly breaks down the asphalt from the inside, and then the constant heating and cooling bends and warps everything. Those curled shingle edges that you can see from the ground are what months or years of this damage eventually look like - one of the most common roof problems for Tampa homeowners.
Sun damage is usually what homeowners think of first to protect their roof. Tampa residents face a second heat-related issue as well, and it comes from below instead of from above. Your attic space gets very hot during the summer months that we experience here. On a pretty standard afternoon when the temperature outside reaches about 95 degrees, your attic's internal air temperature can spike well past 140 degrees.
It bakes your shingles from underneath. When your roof gets this heat day after day, it's going to break down the adhesive strips that hold your shingles flat against the roof deck. After a while, the edges will start to lift and curl up away from the surface.
To make your attic comfortable and stop the heat problems from happening, most homes need about 1 square foot of ventilation for every 300 square feet of attic space. A lot of Tampa homes fall short of that ratio. When there isn't enough airflow up there, all that hot air gets trapped with nowhere to go, and as the day wears on, it just continues to pile up and makes the problem worse.
That heat creates another problem on top of the first one. When your attic gets hotter, the air pressure inside it goes up, too. That pressure builds underneath and pushes your shingles up and away from the deck. Combine that upward force with the adhesive that's already been weakened by the heat, and you have perfect conditions for shingles to curl.
Attic ventilation tends to work best if you have two different types of vents that work together. Ridge vents get installed right at the peak of your roof, and they're what allow all that hot air to escape from the top. Soffit vents run along your eaves, and their job is to pull cooler air in from the bottom. This allows air to move through all of the time and carries the heat up and out before it can sit there and damage your shingles.
When these two parts work right, the temperature difference between your attic and the outdoor air stays a lot more reasonable. Your shingles stay cooler all day long, and the adhesive that holds everything together can hold a strong bond for a few years longer compared to what you'd get from a roof that's missing one or both of these elements.
Tampa deals with afternoon thunderstorms about 80 days out of the year. Add it all up, and it means plenty of water exposure for the roofs in the area. All that rain leaves the air loaded with moisture, and roof shingles take a beating from it because the humidity levels refuse to stay steady - they can swing dramatically just within a few hours as the day goes on.
Humidity levels might sit around 60% in the morning. Then an afternoon thunderstorm rolls in and pushes that number to 90% or higher. Your shingles have to expand and contract over and over to take care of these kinds of swings.
Water vapor is going to find its way to the back of your shingles whenever heavy storms blow through your area. As the air gets more humid, the shingle material will actually start to absorb all that moisture, just like a sponge would. Then, once the storm finally passes, the sun comes back out and starts to heat everything up on your roof pretty fast.
Most of the damage that you'll see happens when everything dries quickly. The edges of your shingles will start to curl up and lift away from the roof, and this happens because those exposed edge areas lose their moisture much faster than the protected center sections do, and it works the same way that paper does when just the edges get wet and then dry out too fast - the edges curl as the middle stays mostly flat.
This moisture problem gets way worse if your home is anywhere close to the Gulf. Salt air carries a lot more humidity than normal air, and it's going to settle onto your roof even when it's not raining. Salt is hygroscopic, too, and once it lands on your shingles, it'll actually pull more moisture directly out of the air.
All this expansion and contraction takes a toll on your shingles over time (each storm cycle, each period where everything heats up and dries out), and it all puts stress on the material bit by bit. After this cycle repeats for months and years, you wind up with the curled, damaged shingles that are pretty common on Tampa roofs.
For Tampa homeowners, the granules on your shingles have a big say in how long your roof will last. These little ceramic pieces do two separate jobs for you at the same time. For one, they bounce UV rays away from the shingle material and stop it from breaking down too fast. For another, they add just enough weight to hold your shingles down flat against the roof deck where they belong.
The Tampa weather is brutal on these granules and wears them down much faster compared to what you'd see in other parts of the country. A shingle rated for 20 years somewhere else might only give you about 15 to 17 years here in Tampa. The protective layer won't last nearly as long as it should because of the intense sun exposure and heavy storms we get hit with.
After rainstorms wash the granules away, bare patches start to appear all across the shingle surface. These exposed areas no longer have any protection from the direct sunlight and heat that beat down on them day after day. If you don't have that protective coating in place, the shingle material underneath is going to start curling and wearing out much faster than it would otherwise.
Thankfully, you can check for this on your own. After a storm passes through, go ahead and check your gutters and downspouts. Lots of dark, sand-like material in there means granule loss from your shingles - it's one of the earliest signs that your roof is starting to wear down and age.
Granule loss doesn't affect all shingles in the same way. Architectural shingles usually hold onto their granules much better than the basic 3-tab shingles do. How they're made matters here - architectural shingles use more layers and better quality materials right from the start. All that extra thickness and better construction help them stand up against Tampa's intense summer heat much better over time.
Roofs age faster here because the climate is pretty tough on materials. Every summer wears away at the protective granules on your shingles, and over time, that damage piles up. Your shingles will eventually start to curl and fail.
Summer heat will expose installation problems that usually stay hidden during the rest of the year. Once temperatures climb up around 95 degrees, your shingles start to expand, and any shortcuts that were taken during the installation process are going to show up pretty fast.
Bad nail work is one of the biggest installation mistakes I see all the time. Every shingle needs six nails to be installed correctly. Some crews will cut corners and only use four nails per shingle to speed up the job and save themselves time. Others will nail them in the wrong place - they'll hammer the nails too high up on the shingle when they actually need to be in what's called the right nailing zone. When the weather is mild and stable, these mistakes might not give you any problems right away. Summer heat changes everything, though, because the expansion from those high temperatures puts a lot more stress on each and every one of the attachment points.
Starter strips are one part that gets missed quite a bit during installation. They sit along the edges of your roof and give you a strong base for the first row of shingles to grab onto. If you don't have them, the shingles at the edge don't have much holding them down, and they'll start to curl upward once the temperature gets hot enough.
Shingles get damaged well before they ever make it onto your roof, and it's something that most homeowners don't know about until it's too late. Bundles that sit out in direct sunlight (on a hot driveway or in the back of a pickup truck) will start to warp from all that heat exposure. Once those warped shingles get installed on your roof, they're never going to lie flat the way they're designed to. No amount of nailing or adhesive will fix them at that point, and you'll wind up with an uneven roof surface that looks bad and performs even worse.
Peak season brings a whole different set of problems. Crews are rushed during the busy months, and they'll sometimes skip the needed steps just to get the jobs finished faster. The underlayment has to overlap correctly, or the moisture is going to seep into your roof deck and cause damage. Installers who are rushed won't always take the time to line everything up right. When summer arrives, and the materials start to expand from the heat, these gaps and the installation errors show up in the form of curled or lifted shingles.
Your roof should be able to hold up just fine during Tampa's brutal summers. Poor installation work is probably what's behind the curling and damage you're seeing.
When shingles curl on Tampa roofs, it doesn't usually come from just one issue. Usually, it's a combination of problems that all happen at the same time. UV rays pound your shingles day after day, and the Florida weather swings wildly between thick humidity and intense heat, so your roof takes damage from multiple angles. Toss in a bad installation or a ventilation problem that's been there from the start, and Tampa roofs do take a beating during those brutal summer months.
Some shingle materials are going to be way better at standing up to Tampa's climate than others will. Knowing which ones actually hold up in this weather helps you make better decisions about replacement options that will last for years - not ones that are going to fail on you after just a couple of seasons.
Tampa's weather conditions are notoriously hard on roofs, and the homeowners around here know it. The great news is that maintenance really helps when small problems get caught before they turn into expensive disasters. Minor problems are much easier to fix when addressed early, and this type of early care can add years to your roof's lifespan in a climate as aggressive as Tampa's.
A reliable roofing partner matters in Tampa, one that actually understands the weather challenges around here. Colony Roofers works on commercial and residential projects, and we work out of Georgia, Florida and Texas. Your roof protects everything (your home, your belongings and your family), so when something goes wrong, you'll have to get it fixed right. We provide free inspections, and our team has the experience to take care of whatever's going on with your roof.