Slate Roofing Reviews – Composite, Synthetic, Inspire and Ecostar
Advantages: The primary advantage of slate roofing is it’s incredibly long life span. In every slate roofing review we look at the sheer longevity of the product is outstanding. Many commercial producers or slate or synthetic slate roofing warranty the product for 50 years. Slate roofing has been on some historic building for close to 200 years! With proper maintenance, dependent on environmental conditions, roof layout, and quality of initial install a new slate roof installed today can easily last over 100 years. There is also the natural beauty of slate. Slate roofing comes in many different colors including flat gray, black, red and the most common classic varied colors. Slate roofs can give a new building an “old world” look and garner a tremendous wow factor. Slate roofs hold up to impacts very well and have the best fire rating available.Some believe no other roofing product holds a light to slate roofing. Slate is on some of the worlds oldest and grandest churches, historic building and monuments. It’s beauty is unique to it and no synthetics have quite seemed to grasp the natural greatness of true slate. The historic roofing boom for slate occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While it currently has less than 1% of the residential and commercial market, those who have it are proud owners.
Disadvantages:Â Slate is perhaps the most expensive roofing solution for your home or commercial building. This is a natural product that is almost impossible to get perfectly consistent, in fact many architects designed thicker slate to be used near the eaves edges of building where the thinnest went up at the top. Â In looking at choosing based on a slate roofing review perhaps the most important thing is installation standards. Repair is exceedingly difficult on slate roofs. In general you should not walk on a slate roof so repair often requires some sort of power lift or crane which is a time costuming process. Also, although slate is widely available, because of the vast array of slate quarried for slate shingles finding a match can prove exceedingly difficult. Depending on the accessibility of site and extensiveness of repair slate work can run up words of $2000-$8000 per 100 square feet. Unless you are professionally trained on installing slate it is highly suggested against trying it yourself.
Availability: Today, new slate roofing can be found from a variety of sources. There are still large slate quarries across the world producing slate for roofs, counter-tops, floor tile and decorative purposes. There are also some large roofing manufactures that can source slate and have there own brand names.
Synthetic Slate: In an effort to reduce cost and increase uniformity some manufactures have brought some synthetic slate products to the market in recent years. Initial testing is promising and they are highly rated but time will tell whether the artificial can overcome the natural slate roofing loved my many homeowners today. SOme synthetis slate roofing review do exist, but we have a hard time lending much weight to them as none are time-tested to our liking.