A metal roof will cost more and tin plated steel must be maintained and repainted.

You also may wish to consider which type needs more frequent replacement...good quality metal roofs will last longer than shingles. Also, you are not likely to have to worry about moss buildup and cleaning of metal roofs, which can be an issue with shingles. After years of having to crawl around on, maintain, and replace my traditional roofs, I decided that my next house would have a metal roof...and it does.

In my area, the metal roof with screws, was about the same as the architectual shingles. Quicker install on the metal, thus saving some labor costs.

Then I learned of the standing seam metal roof, with no exposed screws, and it was about twice as high. But still a little quicker install time over shingles.

I figure this roof should last for my lifetime, my kids lifetime, and maybe even the grandkids. Even if it is just for our lifetime, I do not want dh to have to crawl around on the roof to replaces shingles, or washers from screws that have dried up, etc.

They started rolling out the metal today :-) Oh this is a 24 gauge medium bronze.

Here is a link that might be useful: Roof Progress

We have a commercial metal roof with exposed screws. According to our builder, it was double what shingles would have been. Standing seam would have been three times as much. Since we have a fixed price contract, I have no access to the actual numbers.

We are building in a heavily wooded area. While wild fires are not as serious a threat here as they are in the arid areas of the West, they do occur. They may occur more frequently in the future if climate change predictions come true. We felt a metal roof and fiber cement siding made a lot of sense because of this. They will also help with our insurance costs.

And I am with Kudzu9 on the maintenance part 100%.

I would be very cautious about choosing the materials and installation methods used for metal roofing with exposed fasteners for a home.

Oh yes, I had forgotten. I had 2 bids that were 3X higher. From the lumber yard and another metal place. Then I found a smaller minnonite outfit. Shingles & metal w/exposed screws were $85sq and standing seam was around $266 but my minnonite guy was $166 for the same thing. We had 50 sqs so it was a pretty significant difference.

But it seems to be going on amazingly fast!