Selecting a Roof

One of the things we really think about when first planning a home is what kind of roof we are going to put on. Most of the time, our roof selections are driven by budget, but sometimes we splurge and spend a little extra if we want to make a statement about our product verses the competition. There are a lot of different options when it comes to roofing, but the three most common that I am going to talk about are composition shingle, metal and tile.

As a rough rule of thumb, a compostion shingle roof costs today approximately $2.50/sf of living space. You have different amounts of years such as 30 or 40 year roofs that rise in costs as you increase lifespan. One cool thing to do is if you have a chosen composition shingle as your product for your home, investigate the different textures. For example, you can use the high-definition product like this:









Or you can go with a European look that we've done before with something like this:








The next option on the price scale is a metal or standing seam roof. These roofs run approximately $4.40/sf for painted metal in a variety of colors and are light weight with long life-spans. The neat thing about these roofs as you can see by the picture below is that the metal is fabricated on top of the roof decking by laying approximately 2 foot wide sections of metal side-by-side and then crimping the seams together which make it virtually impenetrateable by water that is coming straight down.



The more pricey option is the tile roof. The tile roof is running approximatley $5.40/sf for us
right now for the material. The other thing to consider is that because it is so heavy, you actually have to beef-up your lumber package on the roof to support it, so that adds to the cost as well. You can choose some different materials such as clay or concrete, and you can also choose solid colors or what they call blends which are different percentage mixtures of colors that look cool.

So no matter what your budget, don't just take your roof for granted. It really makes your home personal and can add a lot to it's overall curb appeal. Make sure you explore your options because they are continually coming up with different ways to capture certain looks.