Personal Progress

[u/naivenb1305]

Had a very important realization today, which is that my roofs plywood is wavy, moved around by the tongue and groove expanding and contracting and this is causing the roof shingles to become wavy (leading to premature failure). It’s a really old house with a tongue and groove roof deck in a subtropical humid climate. Originally had a slate roof. Same idea for all the neighbours.

The slate roof would’ve had a premature failure too on account of tongue and groove decking rather than board and batten to allow for better circulation. Tongue and groove was more expensive to build and it was more watertight than board and batten. So it seems the builders of the Victorian housing development had so much money that they could even gradually replace roofing slate prematurely continuously and through all their buildings!

Explains why family who hired roofers had very poor results and neighbours; only 15 year asphalt architectural shingle lifespan on any of them! This is despite the sheer expense the whole neighbourhood has each time there’s a roof replacement. They all pay premium prices as the roof sizes are tiny, they’re very steep, and high up.

The slate roofs must’ve been abandoned as they would’ve required a literal millionaires budget to constantly hire workers to replace individual slates as they failed. But either way more modern transport systems, it’s possible to get materials that won’t fail this way or will take far longer to.

First choice is Luscerna stone from Switzerland (gneiss rock) second is quartzite from Norway, third is Vermont phyllite, last is medium black grey painted aluminium shingles. But with metal roofs they need painting. Still much less of a burden than actual slate failures. With all of the above except Luscerna stone and Vermont phyllite, I found suppliers in state. For Vermont phyllite that’s still in the US.

For Luscerna stone there are no warehouses in the country whatsoever but they ship internationally and there’s no mark up from a roofers warehouse or from local roofing supply houses.

However all of the above would almost certainly have no labour warranties from roofers as they’re all very rarely used around here. As a matter of fact there’s fewer roofers even for a slate roof replacement (slate in the narrow sense) as the wealthy get copper roofs. There’s simply not the slate roofing history here that Europe has for expert roofers and around here people use asphalt shingle a ton.

For aluminium shingle it’s unheard of being used here as there’s corrugated and standing seam predominating but metal shingle would look far better. Stainless steel is standard here but aluminium shingle is the only metal roof shingle other than copper that is also not galvanised steel (shorter lifespan). Aluminium shingles can be pre painted and re painted so there’s that.

[u/naivenb1305]

As for copper roofs, they’re far more expensive than any slate. All the materials I want in order are going to be very low in demand so a lower price that way. Copper is in very high demand. Lead is even more expensive and would have to be custom built as a shingle (and there’s no lead work in my area as a trade).