Our house isn't finished yet, so I cannot speak to what it is like to live with. We have standing seam on our two turrets, and if I could have afforded it I may have used it on the entire roof! Our turrets are round, not faceted, and the labor was what made it so expensive. They worked on those two turrets for more than two weeks. I remember looking up after the first day, and they had two pieces in place. I knew it would take them awhile. They did a beautiful job. Afterward, I thanked them, and they said it was a first for their company. Usually turret roofs are faceted and not round. He said it would have been easier had we used copper because it is more maleabele, and I laughed. I would have rather used copper as well, but the cost would have been a bit much.

Good luck.

When we priced metal roofing, the materials cost was almost triple the cost of 30-year architectural shingles! I'm just curious where you can get the metal roofing materials close in price to good shingles. We're thinking in hindsight that we should have used metal for our turret since it will cost an arm and a leg to re-roof it when the time comes (because it is so high). It would have been better to not have to mess with it again. Live and learn!

We're using Tamko Stonecrest Slate for our entire roof...about 55 squares worth. I love it! Of course, they have not installed it yet, but still...

I am not sure how much a high-end asphalt product costs as we never considered them, but I do know that our product is definitely on the lower end of the metal roof pricing spectrum...and the materials cost was still coming in around $220/sq. If you use a standing seam product, then the prices were closer to $350-$400/sq and higher. Of course, if you did a standing seam copper roof, the last price quote I was given was $950/sq- material only!

As far as installation, I'm not sure why it is so much more expensive although I am going to make a broad assumption that it is, at least in part, due to the unfamiliarity of the subs with the product. They will move slower, and they have to make up the potential loss in additional income somewhere. Conversely, the companies that are extremely familiar with the product and installation are charging premiums for their work because they are the recommended installers...many manufactureres won't stand behind their amazing warranties if the product was not installed by a preferred roofer. The labor costs around here were probably double that of what an asphalt shingle would cost in labor.

The product looks like it would be a pretty simple installation...after you've done it a few times. I don't think I'd want to learn as I go! The manufacturers all have very nice installation guides...most of them have videos as well.

Insurance companies in Texas give up to a 25% discount on the homeowner's policy if the metal roof is installed by a certified installer. You must present the signed form, along with the type/grade of metal roofing installed, to your agent to get the discount.

So check with your insurance company before you install it yourself. It's a significant amount of money you will save. Every year! We save 24% yearly.

I just casually compared at the big box store, which had Union Steel pre-finished roofing @ about $100/square, and the top-of-the-line 50 year shingle at $87. The price of metal is about 3 times that of a 30 year shingle. My house will use about 25 squares, and has a bone-simple roof shape. I will look into the insurance thing, but I estimate I'll save at least $10,000 DIY, which would take a lot of years of savings on a $600/year policy, which I'm told is what to expect in our neck of the woods. I noticed Union also makes a line of steel shingles, which would have made life easier on those turrets!

That price seems unbelievably low for metal roofing...make sure you are checking out the quality of the product. Also, that may be the cost per square, but the accessory materials are usually very $$$ (such as, starter materials, valley and cap pieces, etc.). What kind of warranty do they offer? Our warranty through Tamko (which is, in my opinion, a pretty respectable company) is a 50 year limited warranty on wear and wind and a 30 year limited warranty on the finish. As dallasbill points out, the certificate of warranty must be signed by the contractor upon completion. While you are correct about never recouping your money based on the possible insurance deductions, you may also want to consider the warranty and its' potential value to you.

There are a couple factors...type of metal and the installers. The basic type of metal roof suitable for residential is not (or did not used to be) too pricey, just heavy galvanized corrugated type metal. Then comes some of the others like standing seam and then the material (galvanized, stainless, copper) Standing seam is quite labor intensive. Then, mainly only commercial installers are familiar with and have access to the materials and they charge a fortune (see you coming).

30 years ago we put a product called galvalume roofing (corrugated overlay type) on a house. The contractor quoted a price of about $350/sq...roughly 7 times the cost of then architectural shingle jobs. We figured the materials must have been astronomical becasue it took them no time to install it (large sections at one time/simple screw down process. After his crew left, we decided to put the same stuff on the boat house. Some of the distributor's literature was still laying around so we called them. They were happy to sell directly to us. To our surprise, the cost was no more than singles (maybe even a bit less than premium shingles). You order the pieces cut to length so there were very few cuts to make (just the hips and they were easy). The boat house was about 15 squares I think and it took no more than 3 hours to install. Bottom line, the installer made a fortune on us! I estimated he had about $75/sq tops in labor and materials (and he was low bidder, several would not even quote).

Our entire roof is metal standing seam. We love it and look forward to years of little to no maintenance.

Despite being lifetime DIY'ers we had our roof installed by a company that specializes in metal roofs. I would just like to caution anyone thinking of installing their own.... metal is very slippery! Three tradesmen slipped off our 2nd story roof during installation - 2 roofers and a builder! Two of them sustained serious injuries! I couldn't wait to get that roof finished before anyone else could be hurt! The roof is beautiful but it is sad that anyone had to be injured to install it.

I had a metal roof installed because of it's longevity, durability and style (it fit my cracker style plan). I bought 5v galvalume locally and had a good friend do it for me. I paid around $360 a square labor and material. My roofer friend had alot of the trim pieces custom bent to his specs, rakes, eves, etc. I would try it after seeing it done once. I would caution you as others have, it is very dangerous to walk on. So if it is above one story I'd leave it to the pros. P.S. I used to walk and pump 8" tiebeams, but 2 storys up on this metal roof shook me. Joe

Our house is almost complete, and we have a metal roof. We're in Florida, so energy efficiency is a big concern for us; we went with ICF construction and a white metal roof. The metal roof cost us 3 times what it would have cost for a shingled roof, however we considered things like lower energy bills and lower homeowner's insurance rates. We've been getting in quotes, and they are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than what we expected to pay, because our roof is hipped and metal, and because we're using ICF construction. Since the additional cost of the roof is spread out over 30 years, if we can save in one year what the extra $$ for the roof adds to our yearly mortgage payments, then we are coming out ahead. And even if we're not, the environmentality was our primary concern, more so than the money.

Cheers!
Heather W

Here is a link that might be useful: Our ICF Home Construction Journal

Hmp2z: I followed your link and just love the fact that you kept so many trees on your home site. It is lovely.

I noticed all the posts about the Gopher Tortoises. You seem to be relocating them to wetlands. You should know that they must have dry scrub as their habitat. They will die if relocated to a wetland or even to an oak hammock or other area that is not scrubby habitat. I have several living on my property and many in my area in FL(saw 5 of them today alone.). They are similar to desert tortoises out west in the fact that they need dry, sandy, scrubby habitat with that near pure white sand for the most part.They are on the endangered species list as Species of Special Concern.

Also you should never relocate them. This is for many reasons #1) they can have upper respiratory diseases. Relocating one with this will spread it to all the others in the area that they are relocated to . and #2) they live in underground burrows which they dig that are up to 6' deep and 30 feet long. If you move it to an area such as a wetland, they cannot create a burrow because there is water there. They drown in water and can't even live in semi moist or non dry soil. Also they are very familiar with their home territory (their burrow, the area they lived, the exact bush that their burrow was next to). They basically hang out in the same general area, walk the same path, day after day. They are creatures of extreme habit. they live 60 years and longer. They also they eat only certain plants and these plants only exist in their special habitat all year around. If you move it, it is going to be lost and will wander trying to find its old home and the food it needs. This will likely result in its death. The older and larger the tortoise, the more likely this will happen.

I urge you to join the Gopher Tortoise Council to learn more about them. It is a local FL group and you seem to be a green type person that would be the type of member to join that group. If you must relocate, their are preserves for them and you get them tested for the resparitory disease first. You have to have permits for this. It is against the law to touch one without a permit.(though many folks cheat the law to get them safely across a road.)

Also know that a portion of land that is their habitat can only sustain so many of them per acre. I cannot stress how important it is not to relocate them. If you have to move it out of the road, move it to the closest safe habitat that is very near the road. If it is a local, hardly driven road, just move it to the side. Where I live many are in the road each day. everyone knows about them and stops and waits or moves them to the side. But the road is hardly busy and the speed is slow. The folks don't relocate them. Relocation can lead to a slower, more agonizing death to the tortoise than just getting squashed by a car, unfortunately.

Stay green. Sorry to harp on you. It kills me to see a tortoise relocated to a wetland because I know what will happen to it. :(

Also snakes and many other animals live in their burrows - which is cool. Something like 100 other species can live in their burrows with them. They are considered an important species because they provide homes for so many other animals and reptiles. I just love them.

Our galvalume roof ran about 1.75 to 2 times the cost of shingles. We purchased the material ourselves and hired the labor out seperately. This saved the mark-up on materials, but still cost more for the labor.

We chose to spend the extra money for several reasons, environmental, not just the longer life of the roof, but the recycle-ability of the metal should it need to be replaced. Reduced cooling bills (important in our area). And looks :)

We have just had a beautiful sun porch constructed on the front of a small ranch house, using galvalume aluminum corrugate as the ceiling, with the eves along the front and sides of the house also lined underneath with the same corrugate (you look up at it -- it's not on top of the roof). now we have mysterious whitish spots -- hundreds of them, marring the galvalume surface. they seem to run along about a foot out from the house wall, where the old soffit used to hang. does anyone know what this can be? it looks like condensation, but i cannot remove it. maybe a chemical reaction, but to what?? HELP!!!

Side note: I'm in your neck of the woods, and annual homeowners for us is $400. You are familiar with our house, so gauge yours from that.

Great when something is cheaper than expected! :)

I ended up getting a Timberline roof, mainly because of the cost. Another reason was that I live on an island and we have huge old live oaks which stain the metal roofs in a very unattractive pattern of streaks. The Timberline color called weathererd wood does not show the stains as much. Also, living on an island, we have very weak cell phone signals. We do get storms, so the cell phone is important to me. The cell phone signal is weakened even more here if you are under a metal roof.

We have a metal roof now and are installing a metal roof on our new home as well. The manufacturer is VicWest here in Canada. We have a local distributer and the cost is $1.25 to $1.80 per sqft depending on the colour or lack thereof.

We're currently waiting on an estimate from a local installer. He installed the roof of our current home but I can't remember the cost. He's able to get the materials at a bit of a discount but obviously the labour makes it more expensive than DIY.

This is one of the things we don't want to do ourselves. It can be hard to get it straight and keep the lines running straight even on a simple roof. It's also ackward to work with and you can get cut on the edges. We did our garage and a few sheds over the years but we decided to leave the new house to someone who does it all the time.

Be sure to obtain your roofing UL certificate from your installer and forward a copy to your insurance agency.

Sweet tea, I appreciate your concern about the gopher tortoises - saving them was our first concern, as well. We actually didn't have any on our lot, after all that; we just had 4 empty burrows! To answer your concerns, though, our wetlands aren't true "wetlands" in that they're not swampy; they're just designated as such, since they're conservation areas and we're not allowed to touch them. They're very scrubby, as well.

We actually have many, many gopher tortoises in our community, and most of them live in the scrubby "wetlands" and just come out to browse. We had to relocate one tortoise from the middle of the road last weekend :) (We just helped him across the road - we're those permit cheaters you spoke about, but I can't stand to see them get killed). We definitely got the appropriate permits, etc., to relocate the tortoises to the undevelopable part of our property. We love those little guys, and are always pulling over to get them out of the highways here when we see them in danger. I saw one get crushed a few weeks ago, and it was very upsetting. But we always just walk them across the street whenever we can, to keep them from getting killed.

Sorry to deviate from the original thread, but I just wanted to let you know that our gopher tortoises were all okay. Well, we didn't have any, but they would have been okay - no actual "wetlands" :)

Regarding the original post, I wanted to add that our metal roof came from Southeastern Metals.

Cheers!
Heather W

Here is a link that might be useful: Our ICF Home Construction Journal

My Verizon telephone signal is considerably weaker underneath the stone coated metal roof of Decra Shingles.

Have any of you noticed this problem? What has nbeen your solution to it?

TIA.

You need a signal booster. Or stand by the window! Nothing else will fix it well.

People who get radiant barriers are unpleasantly surprised by this, too!

zBoost is the best and it really works.

Here is a link that might be useful: W-Ex zBoost

I just read of one other option. AT&T is now marketing a 5.8 Ghz cordless phone with Bluetooth. You can marry up to 2 *different* cell phones with the base unit. It will use up to 12 cordless phones and all can be used to accept incoming or make outgoing calls via cell or landline.

The disadvantage is that your cell must be plugged into your charger (Bluetooth sucks juice from it) and be within 30 ft of the base unit. It also means that visitors and guests will still have lousy reception inside your home -- with zBoost they would not.

We were going to go with metal but the cost was a much higher price so we ended up not going metal. I wish we could have afforded it but.......

As far as the discount goes with the metal roof, make sure you check with your insurance company on all the facts with that. Most of the time when you get that discount you are agreeing that you can not make a hail damage claim, hence the 25% or so discount.

well, after instaling a sat dish for a friend this weekend, the one drawback to a metal roof is it is SLICK when dusty! i almost went off the house a couple times.

i do plan on putting one on my house when the time comes though.

All of the time you are agreeing that you won't make a hail damage claim for cosmetic damage, AKA dings and dents. Which, unlike asphalt, do nothing to impair the roof's protective capabilities.

Also, a good deal of the discount has to do with fire, too.

Which is perfectly fine with me.