Compare metal roofing and soft roofing

Met­al tiles and soft roof­ing, which is also called soft or bitu­mi­nous tiles, are two pop­u­lar and approx­i­mate­ly sim­i­lar types of roof­ing. Which one is bet­ter — there is no def­i­nite answer to this ques­tion, since each of the mate­ri­als has its own char­ac­ter­is­tics, advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. There­fore, our experts asked pro­fes­sion­al builders to com­pare these two mate­ri­als and deter­mine the cri­te­ria on which you can make an informed choice.

Before com­par­ing and draw­ing con­clu­sions, you need to have an idea about the prop­er­ties and fea­tures of each of the mate­ri­als, and con­sid­er­ing their char­ac­ter­is­tics, you can draw pre­lim­i­nary con­clu­sions in favor of one or anoth­er type of roof­ing.

Advantages and disadvantages of materials

We have sum­ma­rized all the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of each mate­r­i­al in a table that will help you in choos­ing.

MATERIAL	ADVANTAGES	LIMITATIONS
METAL TILE	+ COMPARATIVELY LOW PRICE; + SIMPLICITY AND SPEED OF INSTALLATION; + THERE IS NO NEED FOR A SOLID BASE DEVICE; + ATTRACTIVE APPEARANCE; + FIRE SAFETY.	- LIMITED APPLICATION FOR COMPLEX ROOFINGS; - RISK OF SUDDEN SNOW FLOW, NEED FOR PERIODIC SNOW CLEARING OR INSTALLATION OF SNOW RETAINERS; - Dif­fi­cul­ty in REPAIR; - NEED FOR A LIGHTNING PROTECTION DEVICE; - ROOF NOISE IN RAIN; - SUBJECT TO CORROSION.
SOFT ROOF	+ POSSIBILITY OF MORE RICH DESIGN, USE OF A WIDE RANGE OF COLORS AND SHADES; + LONGER SERVICE LIFE COMPARED WITH METAL TILES; + POSSIBILITY OF USE FOR ROOFING OF ANY COMPLEX CONFIGURATION; + EASY TO REPAIR; + SILENT ROOF IN RAIN; + THERE IS NO DANGER OF SUDDEN SNOW FROM THE ROOF; + NOT SUBJECT TO CORROSION.	- HIGHER PRICE IN COMPARISON WITH METAL TILE; - THE NEED FOR A SOLID BASE DEVICE; - COMPLEXITY AND LONG TERMS OF INSTALLATION;

Characteristics and features

metal tile

Met­al tile — sheet mate­r­i­al, the basis of which is a thin gal­va­nized steel sheet, with a thick­ness of 0.4–0.52 mm. In the man­u­fac­ture of met­al tiles, a flat base is processed under pres­sure, giv­ing the sheet a relief shape that imi­tates the appear­ance of nat­ur­al ceram­ic tiles. After stamp­ing, the mate­r­i­al is cov­ered with sev­er­al pro­tec­tive lay­ers on both sides.

Coating

From the side, which in the design posi­tion on the fin­ished roof will be fac­ing down, the sheet is cov­ered with lay­ers of primer, pas­si­va­tion and paint, which serve as pro­tec­tion against cor­ro­sion. On the upper side, the sheet is also pas­si­vat­ed and primed, but for the top­most, front lay­er, which, in addi­tion to pro­tect­ing against atmos­pher­ic influ­ences and ultra­vi­o­let solar radi­a­tion, also per­forms a dec­o­ra­tive func­tion, sev­er­al types of poly­mer com­po­si­tions can be used. The degree of resis­tance of the roof­ing to exter­nal influ­ences and the area of ​​use of the met­al tile depends on the type of these com­po­si­tions.

From this we con­clude: if you choose one of the types of roof­ing for the roof of your house, in this case, met­al tiles, you need to know that this mate­r­i­al dif­fers in types of front cov­er­ing, and each type has its own scope.

Impor­tant! For the front coat­ing of met­al tiles, 3 main types of poly­mer­ic mate­ri­als are used:

1. poly­ester (inter­na­tion­al des­ig­na­tion — PE). An inex­pen­sive type of pro­tec­tive coat­ing, which is applied in a lay­er with a thick­ness of 25–35 microns, can be oper­at­ed at tem­per­a­tures up to 100 ° C and has a low resis­tance to mechan­i­cal dam­age and the abil­i­ty to retain col­or;

2. polyurethane (PU or Pur­al), applied in 50 µm thick­ness, can be used at tem­per­a­tures up to 120 °C, has good mechan­i­cal resis­tance, excel­lent resis­tance to UV radi­a­tion, cor­ro­sion and col­or reten­tion for a long time;

3. plas­ti­sol (PVC), applied in a lay­er of 200 microns, can be oper­at­ed at tem­per­a­tures up to 60 ° C, has excel­lent resis­tance to mechan­i­cal stress and cor­ro­sion, but at the same time it has low resis­tance to UV radi­a­tion and col­or fast­ness.

Advice: Before pur­chas­ing a met­al tile, you should deter­mine what type of coat­ing is applied to the front side of the sheets in the range offered, and based on this, decide which type of roof­ing suits you.

Poly­ester-coat­ed met­al tiles have proven them­selves well when used in cen­tral Europe, where regions with a tem­per­ate cli­mate are locat­ed. When using this type of mate­r­i­al, spe­cial care should be tak­en dur­ing trans­porta­tion and instal­la­tion, since the front lay­er of met­al tile sheets has a low resis­tance to mechan­i­cal dam­age, and then dur­ing oper­a­tion, the dam­age sites become sources of increased cor­ro­sion.

The mate­r­i­al coat­ed with plas­ti­sol, although it has high resis­tance to mechan­i­cal stress, does not have suf­fi­cient resis­tance to large tem­per­a­ture changes and UV radi­a­tion, so it should not be used in the south­ern regions. Rec­om­mend­ed for coat­ing indus­tri­al and admin­is­tra­tive build­ings.

Met­al tile coat­ed with polyurethane is a mate­r­i­al with excel­lent con­sumer qual­i­ties that can be used for roof­ing any build­ings in any cli­mat­ic regions.

Soft tiles

Ele­ments of soft tiles, also called shin­gles or shin­gles, are made of durable fiber­glass can­vas. It is cov­ered on both sides with bitu­men that has under­gone spe­cial train­ing — mod­i­fi­ca­tion or enrich­ment with poly­mer resins and syn­thet­ic rub­ber. As a result of the use of mod­i­fied bitu­men, the mate­r­i­al acquires spe­cial elas­tic­i­ty, resis­tance to mois­ture, large tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions, and harm­ful microor­gan­isms.

In addi­tion, soft tiles are cov­ered on the under­side with a self-adhe­sive lay­er for fas­ten­ing to the base under a sil­i­cone film, which is removed before instal­la­tion. And on the front side sprin­kled with fine min­er­al chips, which serve as pro­tec­tion against mechan­i­cal influ­ences, UV radi­a­tion from the sun and fire.

Now that you have an idea about the prop­er­ties and fea­tures

mate­ri­als, you can con­sid­er the fac­tors that direct­ly affect the choice of one or anoth­er option for roof­ing.

Dimensions, slopes and roof configuration

Fin­ished prod­ucts from met­al tiles are pro­duced with dimen­sions: 1120–1190 mm wide, 500 to 4500 mm long (sheets up to 7500 mm long can be pro­duced on a sep­a­rate order).

Unlike a met­al tile, a soft roof is mount­ed from small­er ele­ments — shin­gles. One shin­gle has the form of a rec­tan­gle 1000 mm long, 317 mm wide, even on one side and three or more large teeth on the oth­er side, which can be of dif­fer­ent shapes — trape­zoidal, rec­tan­gu­lar, rhom­boid, petal, etc.

For met­al tiles, build­ing codes set lim­its for slopes of roof slopes — at least 14 °. There is no such restric­tion for soft tiles — the roof slope can be 90 °, that is, ver­ti­cal. This means that met­al tiles, unlike soft tiles, have lim­i­ta­tions in use.

Impor­tant! It is ratio­nal to use met­al tiles for sim­ple-shaped roofs — with rec­tan­gu­lar slopes, with­out bends and com­plex details. Soft tiles can be used for any type of roofs, includ­ing those with hipped, con­i­cal, pyra­mi­dal ele­ments, ver­ti­cal dif­fer­ences in height, etc.

Issue price

The aver­age price for a met­al tile is in the range of 180–480 rubles / m2, for a soft tile of com­pa­ra­ble qual­i­ty — 200–6 dol­lars / m2. How­ev­er, when deter­min­ing the cost of a roof­ing device, in addi­tion to the price of the roof­ing mate­r­i­al, it is impor­tant to take into account the cost of the base for the roof­ing.

The met­al tile is laid on a wood­en crate made of a small sec­tion of tim­ber, which is attached to the rafters. To install a roof made of soft tiles, a more reli­able foun­da­tion is required — in addi­tion to rafters and lath­ing, a sol­id floor­ing from a draft board is laid under the shin­gle, along with sheets of ply­wood or OSB. In addi­tion, before lay­ing soft tiles, a lin­ing car­pet is laid around the perime­ter of the roof, on the ridge and at frac­ture points.

As a result, the cost of installing a roof made of soft tiles is about one and a half times more than the price of a roof with met­al tiles.

Mounting Features

If we com­pare the com­plex­i­ty of instal­la­tion of these two mate­ri­als, it may seem that the instal­la­tion of a roof made of met­al tiles is less labo­ri­ous than cov­er­ing the roof with soft tiles. For­mal­ly, this is true — the com­plex­i­ty and num­ber of oper­a­tions in the first case is less than in the sec­ond, but this will be true in the case of a sim­ple sin­gle or gable roof. When con­struct­ing a more com­plex struc­ture, dif­fi­cul­ties arise, there­fore, when com­par­ing accord­ing to this cri­te­ri­on, the fol­low­ing fea­tures must be tak­en into account.

It is pos­si­ble to cut met­al tiles only with spe­cial met­al shears or an elec­tric jig­saw, but in no case with a “grinder”, which severe­ly dam­ages the pro­tec­tive coat­ing at the cut points, which sub­se­quent­ly caus­es accel­er­at­ed cor­ro­sion of the steel base. In any case, the places where the sheets of met­al tiles are trimmed must be pro­tect­ed with addi­tion­al primer and paint.

Dif­fi­cul­ties are caused by the lift­ing and place­ment of large-sized sheets on the roof, for which it is nec­es­sary to have a larg­er num­ber of work­ers in the team than with the instal­la­tion of a soft roof.

Aesthetic component

Both types of roof­ing mate­r­i­al can mim­ic, to vary­ing degrees, the appear­ance of nat­ur­al ceram­ic tiles. How­ev­er, the pos­si­bil­i­ties of design­ing soft tiles go beyond sim­ple imi­ta­tion due to a rich­er range of used col­ors, shades and shapes of shin­gles, which opens up wide oppor­tu­ni­ties for archi­tects to design a vari­ety of build­ing exte­ri­ors.

In addi­tion, when installing a roof made of met­al tiles, fas­ten­ing of sheets with self-tap­ping screws is notice­able — this spoils the gen­er­al appear­ance of the facades of build­ings and gives an advan­tage in aes­thet­ic per­cep­tion in favor of a roof made of soft tiles. Bitu­mi­nous tiles are mount­ed using hid­den fas­ten­ers, which does not vio­late the solu­tion of the over­all archi­tec­tur­al con­cept.

Life time

The ser­vice life of met­al tiles is declared by man­u­fac­tur­ers with­in 10–50 years, soft tiles — 15–70 years. More than 20 years have passed since the start of wide­spread use of met­al tiles as roof­ing in EU, and many build­ings cov­ered with this mate­r­i­al are still suc­cess­ful­ly oper­at­ed with­out the need for repair. The same can be said about soft tiles, that is, enough time has not yet passed for an objec­tive assess­ment of the com­pli­ance of both mate­ri­als with the declared ser­vice life.

At the same time, accord­ing to con­sumer reviews, there are cas­es of cor­ro­sion phe­nom­e­na on roofs made of met­al tiles in places where whole sheets are cut, which can be attrib­uted to the con­se­quences of insuf­fi­cient com­pli­ance with the work tech­nol­o­gy and addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion.

Operation features

To com­pare both options for roof­ing, it is impor­tant to ana­lyze some of the fea­tures of their oper­a­tion. Roof­ing from met­al tiles, unlike roof­ing from soft tiles, requires sev­er­al addi­tion­al mea­sures:

1. light­ning pro­tec­tion and ground­ing devices for the struc­ture in order to pre­vent light­ning strikes, which can lead to fire of the wood­en sup­port­ing struc­tures of the roof frame and dis­rup­tion of elec­tri­cal appli­ances at home;

2. instal­la­tion of snow retain­ers, as there is a dan­ger of an avalanche of snow from the roof slope. For the same rea­son, met­al roof­ing requires snow removal as it accu­mu­lates;

3. addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion by coat­ing with a poly­mer film to pre­vent the for­ma­tion of con­den­sate on the inner sur­face of the roof due to tem­per­a­ture changes.

maintainability

It is eas­i­er to repair a roof made of soft tiles in case of dam­age dur­ing oper­a­tion — it is enough to replace small frag­ments of the coat­ing with new ones. Repair of a roof made of met­al tiles is more dif­fi­cult — it is nec­es­sary to dis­man­tle and replace sheets of a large area, and then insu­late all joints with a new one.

Noisy roof when it rains

One of the cri­te­ria that influ­ences the choice of the type of roof­ing is the noise that met­al tiles make when it rains. Here, the advan­tage is clear­ly behind soft tiles, which prac­ti­cal­ly do not pro­duce any noise dur­ing rain. How­ev­er, if a met­al tile roof is arranged above the attic, then the instal­la­tion of insu­la­tion under the coat­ing can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the annoy­ing sound of falling rain­drops.

Conclusion

In con­clu­sion, let’s say that the choice of one or anoth­er type of roof­ing depends on many fac­tors — your finan­cial con­di­tion, allow­ing you to choose may be a more expen­sive mate­r­i­al, but with high­er per­for­mance, on the spe­cif­ic con­di­tions of the site and region where the con­struc­tion is car­ried out, as well as on some oth­er fac­tors that you must eval­u­ate for your­self and which we have tried to cov­er as ful­ly as pos­si­ble.