Spring,
2005: Issue #4
Tips and Beefs
Tip:
Here’s a great tip — send
in your best slate roofing tip to us at Traditional Roofing
and win a prize! The best tip we receive before the next
TR issue goes to print will win a Gilbert and Becker traditional
slater’s hammer worth a hundred bucks! Send your
tip to Traditional Roofing, 143 Forest Lane, Grove City,
PA 16127 or email.
Beef: Complain, complain,
complain. Sometimes that’s what we have to do. Take
for example the information posted at roofingpeople.com about
slate roofs:
“Disadvantages of slate roof
systems: slate can be very heavy; very expensive; the
colors are limited; requires frequent maintenance; hard
to walk on; relies on underlayment which usually fails
before the slate.”
Almost all of this is simple repetition of
standard misconceptions about slate roofing. Of course slate
can be heavy — it’s
stone. The thicker it is, the heavier it is. But at standard
thickness, virtually any roof can be covered with slate.
Slate roofs are expensive? That depends on how you look
at it. They may be more expensive than cheap roofs to install
initially, but they last so long that the cost is spread
out over a century or two, making them arguably the least
expensive roof money can buy. The colors are limited? What
are you buying, shoes or a roof? Requires frequent maintenance?
Contractors work on old slate roofs that no one has touched
in thirty years. Then, with a little maintenance, the roofs
are good for additional decades. In that thirty-year time,
most other roofs have been completely replaced — maybe
twice. Hard to walk on? They should be. The best slate
roofs are too steep to walk on. Slate roofs are not floors,
are not meant to be walked on and should not be walked
on. Relies on underlayment? Fact is, slate roofs require
no underlayment. Ceramic tile roofs rely on underlayment — slate
roofs do not. You can read more about underlayment and
about Bigfoot walking on slate roofs in the article Top
10 Slate Roof Installation Mistakes in this TR issue.
