Metal roofing -how to choose

Various roof failures, including asphalt shingle blow-off, and premature curling and cracking, has led homeowners to look for more reliable and durable solutions.  As such, people often start asking about metal roofing.

Metal roofing continues to be more and more popular, despite its initial cost, because people are getting tired of having roofs that fail much before their warranties expire.  The metal product offerings come in a dizzying variety of materials, appearances, textures, colours, and performance.  How does one wade through all the sales claims and marketing hype to decide which options are truly the best for you?  It helps to remember that there is no product invented by humans that is truly perfect in every circumstance.  So the exercise is to find the product whose weaknesses are minimized in your particular circumstances, and whose strong points are fully delivered.  It should not be a surprise that proper preparation and installation play a very big role in the final quality of the result.  So let’s examine a selection of products and discuss how their weak (and strong) points should be considered in your selection process.

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Snow Avalanches from Metal Roofs (and what to do about them).

The problem

Metal roofs with smooth surfaces (native metal like copper or zinc, or painted metal) are generally quite slippery when wet.  In winter, under the right conditions, this allows accumulated snow (and ice) to avalanche off roofs.  If the fall area has no traffic or things that can get damaged, that’s probably a good thing, as there is less weight on the roof.  If the snow ends up hitting people (your kids, your postman/woman, your visiting friends), or sensitive property (your car, your expensive BBQ, your heat pump, your eavestroughs/gutters), then that’s not a good thing.  Unfortunately, if the snow control methods were not part of the original roof design and installation, then intervening after the roof is installed is often an area ripe with unintended consequences.

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