A tornado took off 1/3 of the roof of the barn last Spring. We need to replace it and are debating on materials. Wood covered with asphalt shingles, or tin? Any other choices? I think I have seen some sort of fiberglass sheets.

-- Sherry Cookson (oneofthem@one-eleven.net), March 16, 2000

Answers

I would use "tin" if the cost was within your range, as it is long lived, fireproof, a good surface for collecting rainwater, and goes on pretty fast. We had our barn re-roofed 10 years and used shingles (asphalt) because that was easier than tearing off everything and putting up metal, and it has dormers, cupolos, etc, that would have been hard with metal. But I did the chicken and machine shed with metal sheets as it was all straight sections and the old stuff all needed to come off.

-- Jim (jiminwis@yahoo.com), March 16, 2000.

We put tin on our house right over the old shingles without any problem .Just make sure your screws are long enough ,the sales man said they were ,a big wind storm said they were not! We also have tin on the barn .With are hard northern winters I would not use anything else.

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), March 16, 2000.

We are building new or replacing old roofs with metal roofing. This includes our house remodeling. Reason? Well, lots, but one thing is that metal roofing is recyclable. Shake roofs are expensive, need to be treated to be fireproof and our local code says you have to have plywood underlayment on your roof before putting up shakes (seismic stuff)...so you get to do your roof twice! And then because it doesn't breath, you get to replace it twice as fast as if you had used skip sheathing...go figure. 3 Tab roofing is not environmentally friendly, and here you can't take it to the dump for less than a king's ransom when you scrape it off eventually. So "bright" minds take it and dump it along the back country roads! It's a mess. Tiled roof is even more expensive around here and architecturally is out of place in the Pacific NW.

Metal roofing comes in interesting ribbed textures, lots of colors, and isn't noisy when you insulate.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), March 16, 2000.

I agree with the other posts regarding a tin roof but be sure to use screws rather than nails to hold it down. The roof on my barn, on since 1977, was originally nailed on with flat roofing nails, some with rubber, some with lead gaskets around the head. Many of the nails are pulling loose so every spring and fall for the past two years I have to go over the roof, pull any loose nails I find and screw in a 2 1/2 inch screw that also has a rubber gasket and a little metal cap at the head. If screws had been used originally my roof maintenance would be limited to painting and maybe a little silicone here or there.

-- Robert (STBARB@usa.net), March 16, 2000.

Use steel. It comes in colors, use screws, and you can get it pre-cut to any inch measurement you want. It also costs less than aluminum or tin. It is available at any lumber yard. Been usin' it for 20 years.

-- Ernwood (BellyAcresFarm@kyk.net), March 16, 2000.

Roofed the house in stainless, we did not want to be 70 replaceing a roof, we roofed the dairy barn and the shop in aluminum, we recently put up a guest house for our grown kids to live in while in college, and found a product called galva-lum, it is galvanized metal with a coating of aluminum, it is pretty, comes in lots of colors and is easy to put up. We eventually when we retire (in 20 years) are going to sell the farm and move west further in Texas. We are going to find our land now, and we are going to build an all metal house. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 16, 2000.

Wow Sherry! A tornato? Did you have to jump in the root cellar? Vicki this metal house. Do you mean metal framing or that and also metal sideing? You have fire danger?.....Kirk

-- Kirk Davis (kirkay@yahoo.com), March 16, 2000.

Corrugated Galvalum. Rustproof for a long time, then paint with the protective silver paints (say Silvafros as an example here), NOT ordinary repaint in three years paints. Strong, light for its strength, rustproof, priced right, HAIL-PROOF (or at least any dents it takes don't matter). Aluminium dents something awful in heavy hail, and fibreglass or plastic breaks. You might not get heavy hail often, but once is enough.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 17, 2000.

The fiberglass sheets let in light, but don't hold up well to either hail or heavy snow (like 5" of snow or more). They are also more pricey therefore are not a very cost effective option.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), March 17, 2000.

Yes, we are going to use metal studs, metal siding, you ought to go to a lumber yard and see the metal buildings, the metal siding is beautiful and no maintence. (No we don't have many fires, the national Forest burns underbrush yearly) But we have bugs, termites, capenter ants etc.. And who wants to continually paint? We will always have metal roofing from now on and the Galvalum is beautiful. We have had no hail damage with our stainless roof, or the aluminum roofs out at the barn and shop. The tin, or straight galvanized roofing on the Chicken House, has to have a roof coat put on it about every 3 years or it shows rust, ugly! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 17, 2000.

About all-metal buildings - I was in Iceland a year ago and spent a day walking around Reykjavik admiring the architecture. Not much wood there, so many houses have corrugated metal siding. Some with intricate wood trim, some without. They're really lovely. Many were painted, but my favorite was unpainted metal with a light green trim.

-- Webster (webster7n@earthlink.net), January 04, 2001.