Monday, July 26, 2010

Integrating your roofing decisions into your home concept


Your roof covers about half the visible area of your home from the outside. You therefore have some very important decisions to make regarding what kind of roof you want. This is going to be a fun process because of all the different options you have available! For every roofing material, there are many different styles and concepts you can go with.

In the good ol' days, a roof was just straw or wood over your head. Even further back was stone... and in modern days some Denver roofers even offer stone roof tile! The first settlers in Denver used wood planks with tar paper for water proofing. If you are making a log cabin, you can still use wood as your roof, but add tar paper and shingles or metal sheeting as well to make it last. Most modern homes have shingle, tile or metal roofs.

Metal is the easiest and simplest roof. Roofing for metal roofs basically just involves screwing the metal to the roof and leaving. It can be hard to make a metal roof attractive, but painting usually works well. A painted red roof indicates a kind of country barnyard style. A light blue or white roof will reflect sun heat and could be striking in the right background. Metal does not need much maintenance, although it will rust eventually, this would be after you had replaced your shingles several times.

Shingles are very popular in Denver due to their cheap price, light weight and ease of installation. Asphalt shingle installation is a labor intensive process, where the Denver roofing workers staple rows of shingles to your tar paper. The price for the materials is cheap however and it does not require highly skilled workers. Wood shingles on the other hand look much nicer and require more work to make and install. Wood lasts around the same time as asphalt/fiberglass shingles despite their use of natural material.

Tile is like shingles but made of a hard material like clay or concrete. The ceramic shingles are made by hand, cut from clay. Tile shingles last much longer than wood or ceramic. The tiles will last at least 50 years as long as they do not break. These tiles are very hard and strong against weather. They will however break or slip off if hit by branches or if people walk on them. So for tile roofs, you will have to replace a few tiles every year, while shingled roofs have to be completely replaced once they wear out. Tiles can also operate in a more narrow range of roof grades.

Call your Denver roof company to see what the life of your shingles is expected to be because you want to replace them before they start casing weather damage to your home.

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