Slate Tiles or Metal Roofing?

Posted on: 6 November 2017

Sometimes, mother nature can play a number on your plans and provide you with some unexpected costs. Consequently, if you were unlucky enough to sustain significant damage during one of the recent storms, you may be in the market for a replacement on your home. Why should you expand your thought process and consider fitting a metal alternative instead?

A Variety of Choices

Metal roofing is certainly sturdy and come in a number of different configurations. This should allow you to choose quite carefully based on how much money you have to spend, where you live and the type of building in question. To give you an idea of the choices, you can choose galvalume steel with a zinc or aluminium coating, galvanised steel in various different thicknesses, stainless, copper or stone coated variations.

Narrowing It Down

Different types of steel are recommended in different situations, and you may have to rule some out based upon where you live. For example, if you're near to the ocean, galvanised steel is prone to corrosion, and you might be advised to choose aluminium in that situation.

Next, have a look at your budget to see what solutions are recommended. Galvanised is the best all-round option and is most frequently used not only in residential, but also commercial situations. Aluminium is also very popular, albeit a little more expensive, but it lasts for a long time and comes out a lot cheaper than the premium solutions, such as copper.

If you really do want to go for durability though, copper is the solution for you. If your budget does not stretch to having your whole roof made of this material, you might want to choose it for just a few architectural elements.

When it comes to installation, you may not know that you can fit your new metal roof on top of what's left of your existing one, which might save you some money taking the old one out. It can fit readily on top of shingles due to its light weight and can be fitted at any time during the year and in most inclement conditions.

Some people don't like the look of shingles as they may feel that asphalt has more colour options available. However, this isn't entirely the case, and you can also get different metal styles available that imitate the look of tile or slate.

Making Your Selection

Have a word with your installer to see how metal would work for you. They're known for their relatively low "life cycle" budget, which means that even though they may be a bit more to install in the first place compared to asphalt shingles, you will get more durability in the long run.