Residential Roofing: Everything You Need to Know

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If you’re selecting a new roof for your new or existing home, beauty and attractiveness is very important, just like the cost of materials, weight, and installation requirements.

Whether you are building from scratch or selecting a new roof for your existing home, a wide range of materials are readily available for consideration. These include asphalt, wood, composite shingles, slate, concrete, and clay tiles. Style is an important factor, but it’s not the only one. Product cost, material weight, and installation requirements are important factors as well. Here’s what you need to know:

Roofing Terminology

Before we discuss about materials, you need to know the terminologies too. Roofers don’t usually use the measure “square feet.” Instead, they talk in squares. A square is their basic unit of measurement—one square is 100 square feet in area, the equivalent of a 10-foot by 10-foot square.

Cost of a New Roof

Some considerations will influence the cost of a new roof. The price of the material is the first consideration, but other factors also must be considered. One is the condition of the existing roof if you are remodeling a house—if old materials must be removed and if the supporting structure needs repair, it will all cost money. The shape of the roof is another contributing factor. A gable roof with few or no breaks in its planes makes for a simple roofing job. A house with multiple chimneys, intersecting rooflines turrets, skylights, or other elements will be more expensive.

Roofing Materials

Not every roofing material can be used on every roof. A flat roof or one with a low slope may require a surface different from one with a steeper pitch. Materials like slate and tile are very heavy, so the structure of many homes is inadequate to carry the load. Consider the following alternatives, then talk with your designer and get estimates for the job.

Asphalt. This is the most commonly used of all roof materials, probably because it’s very affordable compared to others and requires less skill for installation. It’s manufactured from fiberglass medium that’s been implanted with asphalt and then given a surface of sand-like granules.

Wood. Wood was the main choice for decades and it’s still a very good alternative, though in some areas fire codes forbid its use. Usually made of cedar, redwood, or southern pine, shingles are sawn or split. They have a life expectancy of 25 years but costs more.

Metal. Aluminum, steel, copper, copper-and-asphalt, and lead are all durable and costly roofing surfaces. Lead and the copper/asphalt varieties are typically installed as shingles, but others are manufactured for seamed roofs consisting of vertical lengths of metal that are joined with solder. The price of these roof materials starts from $250 per square but often cost two or three times that.

Tile and Cement. The half cylinders of tile roofing are common on Spanish Colonial and Mission styles; cement and some metal roofs imitate tile’s wavy effect. All are costly very durable, and heavier.

Slate. Slate is among the most durable of all roofing materials. However, slate is expensive and typically costs around $800 per square and very heavy.

Choosing a Roof Material

If you are remodeling your home, the existing roof of your house will determine your choice of roofing material. If you are considering other options, you’ll want to consider not only the cost but the color, texture, weight, and durability of your options, as well as what traditionally has been used on houses like yours.

Installation Notes

Whatever your choice of roofing surface, you will probably need flashing. Flashing is an important part of all exterior work, both on the roof and siding. Flashing is metal or plastic film applied in strips to areas where different materials join together, such as the intersection of the masonry chimney and the roofing shingles, where the siding abuts the window frames, and so on. Good flashing work is necessary to keeping the structure sealed thereby preventing leakages.

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