Well, there is a law in certain areas on how many roof layers you can have. We have one asphalt layer however we do have other layers (not asphalt). Legally we can not have more than two asphalt roof layers on our house. So, even if we had two layers of asphalt we could add the steel roof over them. (you just can't add another asphalt layer) We made the decision to keep the asphalt roof because it would be thousands more dollars to rip off the old roof and dispose of it and we are not required to rip off the old roof. Ripping off the old roof, according to our research, would not benefit us or extend the life of the new roof. Many people around here have metal roofing now and luckily I have seen them being installed. Every one I have seen installed has been installed over the original asphalt roofing. Most likely people did this as a cost saver. This is one of the benefits of metal roofing. The cost of the metal roof is nearly the cost of a complete tear-off plus the new installation of an asphalt roof. if we had to do a complete tear-off we would not be able to afford a metal roof. There are two types of metal roofing. Ones that can be installed directly on the roof deck and those that are meant to be spaced between the roof deck w/ purlins. These roof are more rigid and usually cost more. We wanted the metal roof to be installed over purlins because this leaves an air gap = more insulation for our house. If you need repairs to the roof deck you would have to remove the shingles in that area of the house. Maybe that is why your husband is in favor of the tear-off?? So, we came to the decision to not do the tear-off because: -it was more affordable -not required -did not harm the house or new roof -renee

Just good sense, Hollysprings. Jeep, are you sure you wouldn't be interested in going at least light-er, bounce more of that heat right back into the sky instead of soaking it in? Real comfort and energy bill issues are involved here. Traditionally, a lot of roofs here in the South were even white, including your area, for obvious reasons. I wanted to throw back to that sensible tradition when we custom built 5 years ago, but, to my amazement, the excitingly in-style colors of black, charcoal and dark brown (!,!, and !) were being put on tract developments everywhere at the time and there wasn't a white shingle to be found in the entire South. The best we could do was a pale gray. We also painted our porch floor a light blue instead of the dark woodland green I would have liked, and because of that I can walk out there barefoot these afternoons instead of hotfooting fast back inside, ouch, ouch, ouch-style. FWIW, "Burnished Slate" does go nicely with the woods, echoing the tree trunks, especially when they're wet.

And what color metal roof? Does the pre weathered come In different colors?

I'm in the northeast with a house that has the same combination of cathedral ceiling and attic spaces. Our problems are probably yours times 100. I agonized for a year over how to re-roof and insulate, and ended up going with the smartest roofer I interviewed who said, basically, you are far better off spending money on circulating air with fans than in trying to improve the insulation in the roof. I don't know if this is at all relevant to your situation, but at least it should make you feel better. I mean, how bad can your temperature shifts be in Hawaii??