LUDOWICI TILE
Missing, cracked, or leaking tile on a Ludowici roof, identified, matched, and repaired correctly.
LUDOWICI TILE
A Ludowici roof is built to outlast the people who installed it. When one leaks or loses tile, the answer is rarely a new roof. It is finding the right tile and putting it back correctly, and that is the work this page is about.
Most roofers treat a clay tile repair like any other repair: find something close and make it fit. On a Ludowici roof, close shows from the street for the next fifty years. We identify the exact tile first, protect the house while the right material is located, and only then make the repair.
LUDOWICI
Ludowici tile is natural terra cotta clay, kiln-fired — not concrete and not a composite. It is the clay tile you will find on the oldest tiled roofs still standing in Fort Worth, and it is still in production today, made in New Lexington, Ohio, at the same plant the company has operated since 1909.
The color is the first thing to understand, because it is the reason these roofs have not faded since before the war. On glazed Ludowici products, the color is a ceramic glaze kiln-fired at extreme temperature so it fuses into the tile. On natural unglazed terra cotta, the color is the fired clay body itself and runs all the way through. Either way the color is not a surface coating — which is why nothing painted or coated will ever match one of these roofs, and why a Ludowici roof installed in the 1920s still holds its color.
Every Ludowici tile is ASTM C1167 Grade 1 certified — the highest of three grades for weathering and breakage resistance. Grade 1 tile absorbs under 2% of its weight in water, and absorbed moisture is exactly what cracks and spalls clay tile during freeze-thaw, so that low absorption is the whole reason these roofs survive North Texas winters. The tile carries a Class A fire rating, and Ludowici backs it with a 75-year warranty against manufacturing defects from initial installation.
One detail we check on every inspection: the stamp on the underside of the tile. “Ludowici-Celadon” is not a product line — it is the company’s former name. The Ludowici and Celadon companies merged in 1906 to form Ludowici-Celadon, and the company carried that name until 1994, when it became Ludowici Roof Tile. So a tile stamped Ludowici-Celadon on the underside was manufactured between 1906 and 1994. On a pre-war Fort Worth estate, that stamp usually means you are looking at the home’s original roof.
The “LUDOWICI-CELADON” stamp impressed into the underside of a tile taken off a Westover Hills roof — the mark we look for first on every inspection.
Ludowici sorts its shake-look tile into two families, and the distinction matters when you are matching an old roof. “Shake tile” is a current category containing only modern interlocking products. “Shingle tile” is the family that historic shake-profile tile belongs to — a list of roughly a dozen older profiles, each with its own dimensions and texture. The shake-profile shingle tile we repaired on a recent Westover Hills roof belongs to that older shingle-tile family, not to the modern interlocking shake category. We identify the exact profile from the tile itself rather than guessing, because a wrong profile reads as a patch from the street forever.
TILE MATCHING
Being told your tile is discontinued does not mean your roof is finished. Many older Ludowici profiles are no longer standard catalog items, but Ludowici keeps the patterns and can make them again, and can also reproduce tile from manufacturers that no longer exist.
When tiles go missing from a historic clay roof, the fix is not a trip to a salvage yard. Ludowici maintains a historic pattern library going back to the 1800s — original catalogs, drawings, and technical guides — and their technical service department will identify the correct replacement parts for a specific historic roof from those records.
They replicate their own discontinued profiles and trim, and will match tile from manufacturers that no longer exist. Their craftsmen can create a pattern and mold from a sample tile taken off the existing roof, and can recreate hand-finish textures — finger streaks, hand slush, multi-directional scoring — so a replacement reads as part of the original field rather than an insert.
Custom glaze color matching is its own discipline. Ludowici offers over 50 standard colors plus bespoke matching, and their ceramic engineers mix, fire, analyze, and re-mix test batches until the fired result matches the existing tile. It is not like mixing a paint color — the color you see only exists after the glaze has been fired, so every match is a kiln test, not a swatch.
Lead times, stated honestly: full replication takes several weeks for pattern identification, hand-molded samples, and approvals. Ludowici’s Renovation QuickShip program covers select profiles, trim, and colors in roughly 7 to 14 days, which is the option we use when a section of roof is open and waiting.
For small repairs, Ludowici offers two things worth knowing about: a Renovation QuickShip program with no minimum order on a set of profiles and colors, and a Quik-Tac bracket made for replacing a small number of broken tiles. Which route fits depends on the tile on your roof. Custom matching takes longer, often several weeks, which is why the next step matters.
OUR PROCESS
Identify. We check the stamp, the profile, and the color so we know exactly which tile is on the roof before anything is ordered.
Dry in. We protect the damaged area first, so the house stays dry while the right material is located.
Locate the tile. We source the matching tile rather than substituting something close.
Return and repair. Once the material is in hand, we come back, set the new tile, and check the surrounding field and flashing.
RECENT WORK
A Westover Hills home had a few broken and missing tiles on its Ludowici-Celadon roof. We dried in the openings first so the house was protected, then returned and completed the repair once the matching material was located.
NEW ROOFS
Ludowici is terra cotta, but it is not one look. The company makes more than 40 profiles, including barrel, shingle, interlocking, and tile shaped to read as slate or wood shake, in more than 50 standard glaze colors from matte to high gloss.
We also install new Ludowici tile. Ludowici’s 75-year limited material warranty comes with the tile and does not depend on who installs it. Ludowici’s separate Premium Service Program warranties, which run 10 or 20 years, are available only through their certified Crown Roofers. We are not a Crown Roofer, and we would rather you hear that from us. If that program matters for your project, we will tell you so before you decide.
When a clay roof truly is past repair, the choices are new Ludowici tile or a composite alternative such as Brava Spanish barrel tile.
WHERE THESE ROOFS ARE
Ludowici tile sits on some of the oldest roofs in North Texas: Westover Hills in Fort Worth, and Highland Park, University Park, Lakewood, and Swiss Avenue in Dallas. We serve all of them from our Southlake office.
QUESTIONS
DW CONSTRUCTION
Call 972-213-5496 or request an inspection. We will identify the tile, tell you what it needs, and tell you if it needs nothing.
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