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• Which roofing materials are the cheapest?

• Which ones last the longest?

• Which are the easiest to install?
  

here is a good handful reasons why roofing materials in general remain such an unknown to most people, and the biggest one is that they are for the most part locally unavailable. Sure your local Lowe’s, and Home Depot has an isle stocked with your basics, patching cement etc., but the real mother-lode is located at your local roofing supply house.

It’s the place where roofing contractors shop, and you don’t need any type of business license to shop there either. You can also rest assured they know everything here is to know about roofs in general. Look for one where you live, tucked away down some back street in a heavy commercial/industrial zone. By the way, they also have the best prices.

The other top reason why most people draw a blank when it comes to roofing in general, is because they haven’t done it. It’s a tough, dirty, and dangerous job. The fact is that while everyone lives under a roof, very few of us had anything to do with installing it. Also roofs in general are made to last, so it’s really a rare occasion when someone should find themselves having to buy roofing materials

So wipe off your glasses, adjust your chair, and get ready to become an expert on the topic. Now thirty years ago this report would have been a lot shorter, but all the development that have taken place since then means that there is just so much more to cover. Read all the way to the bottom though, and you will come away an authority on the subject.

You do need to understand one important fact from the start regarding roofing materials, and that is that the pitch or slope of your roof plays in heavily on the actual type of roofing materials you can install on it. In short, you can not install any type of shingle on a roof that has a pitch less than 3 & 12. So take a close look because even if your pitch is 3 & 12 or, above, you still may have a small shed roof or, a dormer that is less than 3 & 12 which can present a problem.

Another item to consider as it pertains to the pitch, slope or, rake of your roof, is that the steeper it is, the more expensive your roof will be. Now a 3 & 12 roof is easy to handle materials, and work on but once you get up to and over, say 6 & 12, the work pace slows to a crawl. Get up to a 12 & 12 roof, and the labor cost shoots way up, for obvious reasons.

Now in years past factoring costs of the various types off various roof materials was a relatively straight forward issue. Back then, with perhaps the exception of ceramic tile roofs, all had a lifespan that was generally at or a little above or, below 20 years. Today though there is a wider range of roofing materials that have much longer life spans that have to be taken into consideration when balancing your costs.

Through it all though the asphalt composition shingle or, what is known in the industry as the (comp roof) still remains by far the most popular choice. In fact almost 90% of the roofs installed today are comp roofs. The shingles themselves are easily the most affordable, and also square for square they are by far the least labor intensive to install. In fact it’s not uncommon for homeowners to do their own comp roofs.

After comp shingles the door is thrown wide open to an ever increasing number of types, and styles of shingles, and tiles, including wood shakes, and shingles, cement tiles, metal tile, shingle, and sheet roofs, and traditional slate. Then of course there is the asphalt built up roof or, (hot roof) that is now seeing some stiff competition from new cold application polymer roofing materials. The word (polymer) means two roofing materials that are mixed together just prior to being applied.

Now the cost of some roofs can be quite surprising. As an example common wood shake roofs have one of the lowest life spans, are prone to leaks as they age, yet cost upwards of $200 per square for raw product. A shake roof looks fantastic, but wood shakes have to be hand split, and with a few exceptions are all imported from Canada where logging regulations have doubled log prices for shake producers over the past four years alone.

So with asphalt composition shingles being the cheapest, and wood shakes being perhaps the most costly when their over all life span is factored into the equation, what then is the most expensive roofing materials you can buy? That dubious title would go to slate. Look to spend around $1000 per square on a late roof, and if the pitch of your roof is 8 & 12 or higher, so too will your cost per square go higher.

So it’s not hard to see why so many people are gravitating towards concrete tiles today. They look good, adapt to pretty much any type of architectural style, and in the balance when initial cost is factored against their long lifespan, they turn out to be one of the better deals out there. I say better because they are not the best. You see, the #1 best deal going when all the math is done, is a metal roof.

Metal roofing materials have come a long way from the corrugated tin roof that was on grandpas barn, and this is precisely why of all roofing materials metal is increasing in popularity at the fastest rate. Simply put, more people are going for it. For starters, most metal roofs come with a mind boggling 50 year guarantee.

Don’t get too excited about that 50 year warranty package though because chances are you wont be around that long. Besides, the truth is that a metal roof will remain solid and intact for well over 100 years, and even longer. So if you do the math, beginning at $150 per square a metal roof trumps even the least expensive comp roof when all things are considered.

Tags: Roofing Materials

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Helpful Facts & Trivia, Metal Roof, New Systems and Technologies, Roof Pitches, Roof Tiles, Roofing Materials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.