Metal, Tile Or Shingle: Choosing A Roof For A Sarasota Home

When people ask which roof is best, they usually want a single answer. There is not one. There are five systems in common use on houses and buildings around Sarasota, and each of them is the right choice for a different set of circumstances.

What follows is what each one actually does well, and the two questions that tend to settle it.

Asphalt shingle

Shingle is the most affordable and the most versatile of the options, and it is made in more colours and profiles than any of the others. For a large number of Florida houses it is simply the sensible answer, and there is nothing second rate about it.

Where it stops being the obvious choice is exposure and time horizon. If the roof takes the full force of the weather, or you plan to own the house for decades rather than years, it is worth pricing the longer lived systems against it rather than defaulting.

Tile

Tile gives a distinct, timeless appearance that suits a lot of the architecture here, and it performs well over a long life. It is the system people choose when they want the roof to still look right in twenty years.

There is a detail worth knowing. Tile can be installed with Tile Bond Foam applied beneath the tiles, which achieves the highest wind rating, reduces noise and improves thermal performance. On this coast the wind rating alone is a serious argument. Tile installations also carry our extended eight year workmanship warranty rather than the standard five, which reflects how much of a tile roof's performance comes down to how carefully it was set.

Metal

Metal is the most durable of the five. It lasts a long time, resists the elements, and on a modern house it reads sleek rather than industrial. Standing seam in particular has become a common choice for people who do not want to think about the roof again.

The best evidence we have for it is from a customer rather than a brochure. A farmhouse we re-roofed three years ago with a lifetime metal roof has since been through three hurricanes without issue. The owner has been referring friends ever since.

Metal is also where fabrication matters. We run our own brake shop for custom trim, so unusual roof lines and awkward transitions get a part made to fit rather than a compromise worked around. Our metal work carries an ATAS Metals award.

Flat

Flat roofing suits commercial structures and a lot of modern homes. It makes rooftop access straightforward and turns the roof into usable space, which matters if there is plant, equipment or an intention to use the area.

It is a different system with different failure modes from a pitched roof, and it wants inspecting on its own terms rather than by the same habits.

TPO

TPO is the efficient, cost effective membrane option for flat and low slope roofs, and it is energy efficient, which in a Florida summer is not a small consideration.

It comes up most often on commercial buildings and on low slope sections of residential roofs, where a pitched covering is not an option.

The two questions that usually decide it

First: how long do you intend to own this building. A system that costs less to install and lasts less time can be exactly right if you are moving in five years, and exactly wrong if you are not.

Second: what is the roof exposed to. Pitch, orientation, tree cover and how much open weather the roof takes all push the answer around. Two identical houses on different sides of the same street can reasonably end up with different roofs.

What the choice does to your warranty

Most of our projects carry a five year workmanship warranty, and tile installations carry eight. That is separate from the manufacturer's warranty on the materials themselves, which depends on the roof being installed to their guidelines.

We are a Master Elite GAF installer and our crews are trained and certified across shingle, tile, metal and flat systems, specifically so the product warranties stay valid. It is worth asking any roofer about, because an installation outside the guidelines can void that cover regardless of what the materials cost.

Getting an answer for your roof

The measure is free and it is done properly: satellite measurements combined with a walk of the roof itself, then an itemised proposal you can read line by line. Nothing is due until the work begins.

Call (941) 926-1900 and we will come and look at it.