Metal Roofing - April 2023 PRO News

A Durable and Attractive Option for Your Customers

Metal roofing is growing in popularity with homeowners because it lasts longer and is resistant to moss growth and wind damage. Sometimes called steel roofing, this term is something you should correct right away if you hear it used by homeowners. Steel rusts, and this is a stigma that no longer applies to today's best metal roofing. The options you can recommend today offer more style choices that other roofing, including versions that look like clay tiles, slate, shakes and shingles. Some have multiple coating layers for long finish life, and they even include textures and ridges that make a roof look more interesting from the ground. Today's metal roofing choices are so much nicer than the plain grey or traditional metal roofs that were installed for years. High levels of customer interest and visual variety creates an opportunity for you as a contractor to win more work and boost profits. But to enjoy these benefits, you need to be prepared to educate homeowners on metal roofing options.

Benefits of Metal Roofing

Metal roofing has a long and successful history of reliable performance that exceeds the lifespan of almost all traditional roofs. This is especially true since roofing screws have taken over from nails for installation. As you explain the benefits of metal roofs, keep things simple. People generally respond best to simplicity, so begin client meetings with these five points in mind:

1. Metal roofing lasts longer and is more hazard-resistant than almost all other options.

This is obvious to many people, but it's worth putting numbers on it. Homeowners find they last two to three-times longer than the most popular current roofing option, asphalt shingles. This is why metal roofing offers the lowest lifecycle cost of almost all roofing options. Homeowners pay more upfront than for asphalt but end up paying less later. Most metal roofing also carries a Class 4 impact rating, which is good for hailstones up to 2 1/2 inches in diameter, and a Class A fire rating, which is the highest available. This extra durability often translates into lower home insurance costs, too. Metal roofing resists high winds well, and some even meet the strict requirements for hurricane prone regions such as Florida.

Metal Roofing Options

Traditional metal roofing systems use exposed screws to hold down large, standing seam panels, and this is what most homeowners envision because it's still the most common approach today. Your job is to explain how newer options exist for metal roofs with hidden fasteners, and especially how metal roofs can now be done in realistic designs that look nothing like traditional metal roofing at all. If you're involved with a Victorian, Edwardian or Craft-style house, for instance, metal roofing can offer a near-perfect replica of traditional roofs that's so much nicer than asphalt composite shingles. These replica metal roofing options come in strips, and though they're not as large as eaves-to-peak panels, strips are still larger than asphalt shingles, so they go down faster.

Metal Roofing Installation Tips

Installation speed is one reason why contractors love metal roofing, and there are tips you should know about to make the most of this efficiency. Many metal roof options are made to extend from eaves to peak in one piece. Jobs like this begin by measuring this length and submitting the figures at the time the metal is ordered. Add an inch to the overall length of panels needed so you get good drip action off the roof.

For roofs where exposed screws will be used you can save a lot of time by predrilling screw holes all at once, with metal roofing panels stacked up together. Predrilled pilot holes make driving the screws so much easier when you are up top on the roof. An impact driver fitted with a magnetic driver bit makes it even easier. The best impacts for this work have variable torque settings, making it simple to avoid over driving the screws. You want the neoprene washer on top of the screws to be compressed, but without crushing the metal under the head.

A small pair of vise-grip locking pliers offer the best way to get metal roof panels up onto the roof. Tie a length of 1/4-inch cord to the end of the pliers, then have someone on the ground lock them onto what will be the top end of full-length metal roof panels. The person on top can pull the panel up by the cord, while someone down below handles the other end of the panel.

Are you dealing with an older roof that's not entirely flat? Metal roofing can be installed over strapping that's shimmed up as needed to get rid of some undulations or sagging. It's amazing how effective this approach is.

A Durable and Attractive Option for Your Customers

Benefits of Metal Roofing

Metal Roofing Options

Metal Roofing Installation Tips

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