Whether you are renovating your house and need to re-roof the house or whether you're putting up a new roof, there are a number of critical points you should pay very careful attention to. This job is worth the time, money and trouble you're going to invest in it because your whole house depends on it. There is no room for half-measures. If the job is being taken care of by a contractor then he too must treat this with the utmost care.
The durability and integrity of the roof depends on the materials you put into its construction. Let's see what these are, and how you should select them.
If you plan on building the roof yourself you must know what materials to buy and how much of each will be required. It is better to buy a bit more than calculated rather than buy the exact amount and find that the material has fallen short. This means not just an extra trip to the supply store but also the tension of breaking the work schedule, and maybe a problem with the budgeting. Go to a store which does a lot of business. They will be able to give you a fairly good estimate of the quantity you will need. Even if you shop online, they will have a helpline service which you can contact for help in making quantity estimates. Some of the commoner roofing materials are: asphalt, stone, slate, clay tile, wood shingles, steel or metal, composite materials and plastics.
Will you be roofing over an existing roof? Check what material the old roof was made of. If the roof was made of asphalt shingles then you'll have to continue with the same. The old roof was designed to support asphalt and will most likely not be able to bear the weight of clay tiles or slate. There is an outside chance that the building may collapse if loaded with a burden it was not designed for.
As a rule, asphalt shingles do a fine job. They are long lasting and trouble free. The only negative we're looking at here, is their tendency to crack when subjected to extreme temperature variations.
Putting up a new roof gives you much more latitude in selecting the construction and material of the roof. You will need to design the structure very carefully; the integrity and longevity of the house depends on the structural design of the roof.
Every house owner aspires to an aesthetically pleasing house. Remember that structural considerations far outweigh appearance in the selection of roofing materials. Don't build a pretty Mediterranean villa in a harsh, cold climatic area, prone to blizzards and deep sub-zero temperatures! It's not going to be very pleasant spending New Year's Eve in a roofless house, because the pretty tiles have all been blown off by a blizzard straight from the North Pole!
Newer construction materials like metal, plastic, and composites give you the advantage of lighter weight and greater durability than traditional roofing materials. It is worth exploring the applicability of these materials in your roofing project.
The cardinal rule is: Use only top quality material for roofing and construction. Anything less than top quality will mean nagging roof-related problems, from leakage and seepage, to structural instability. The integrity of the roof is an important contributory factor to the integrity of the entire house. The longevity of the house is directly dependent on the longevity of the roof. So make quality your top priority when shopping for roofing material.
Asphalt roofing shingles are still the most popular choice for home roofs, but wood and metal are gaining in demand. Go to www.roofing-information.com to discover more about your roofing choices. Choosing the correct roofing material can be the difference between a roof that lasts, and one that needs constant repair.
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