We all know how key hats are to keep warm in winter or keep the sun off us in the summer. Or if you are lady on Derby Day you KNOW how key a fabulous hat is.
Well it is the same with our house, the hat is key to both look and performance. We knew pretty early on in the planning process that we wanted to go with a standing metal seam roof. This was for a few reasons, the first and most important was solar reflective index (SRI) which is a measure of a surface’s ability to reflect solar heat. I wrote more about this
here.
Not having air conditioning in the house, we needed to jump through hoops to make sure we minimized as much heat entering the house as possible. A lighter colored roof was key to reflect as much sun in the summer as possible and this could be best accomplished with a standing metal seam roof.
They also have great longevity, it should last over 30 years, it has a minimum of 25% recycled metal content and is 100% recyclable at the end of its life, has little to no maintenance and looks great. We went with a galvanized metal roof that has a light silver look and high SRI. White would only have been better.
We are really happy so far with the roof, a few angles made installation tricky on the spare bedroom roofline but we worked with a local roofing contractor and got 'er done.
Roofs are one of those house parts that you don't want to think about much after installation but investing in a good roof is key to that being possible. As with many of the other parts of the house we chose to invest the bulk of our money in pieces that won't be replaced in our lifetime. We will remodel kitchens and bathrooms and redecorate but getting great windows, roof, insulation was vital and hence took the majority of our budget.
One of the important pieces to a good roof is sealing all the protrusions through the roof like vents and the chimney. Though the chimney rises on the outside of the house we still worked hard to seal the area where it penetrated the roof as the roof structure is wood and we didn't want water seeping and compromising the framework.
And so far this spring/summer we have had some quite warm days and that house is cool as a cucumber!!
