How do you attach anything too heavy to screw to the drywall to a steel frame? :dubious:
Weld it. Hanging pictures is always more fun when fire is involved.
Its time to inject some reality to this thread.
Duroid shingles are cheap and easy to install.
In my area , you can’t buy the paper backed variety of duroid any more, its all fiberglass with guarantees from 25 to 40 years depending on the weight of pitch and granular.
Any other style of roofing will cost you at a minimum twice as much. You got $4000 to spare fore a nicer roof?
Roll roofing is an economically and structurally viable alternative but not all that much cheaper. It looks cheap, and will devalue your home to a much greater degree thjan any savings you can acrue.
I grew up in a house with a metal roof, galvanized copper to be precise. I loved lying in bed and listening to the rain. They were a little noisy, but not ho noisy.
The steel used in place of studs is actually “light-steel framing.” You can drill and screw things right into it. You have to use metal screws, though, instead of wood screws.
Here’s an website from the industry:
In multi-story and commercial building, you may also have heavy-gauge steel I-beams at the corners and other load-bearing points. You can’t screw anything into those.
My parents are just now moving out of the house we moved into when I was 4. It was built around 1926-27 with a slate roof. The roof began leaking soon after we moved in in 1985, but like others have said, slate is expensive! It was patched repeatedly before the parents finally broke down and had it replaced about a year ago. Now it’s got a type of shingle roof on it, but it still looks great. It was the original slate from 1926, so the roof lasted relatively intact for 80 years. Most of the slate still looks great, it’s the underpinings that were rotted away because pieces of slate had fallen off to expose them.
-Lil
Basicly, they work better then the alternatives.
A roof is a complex machine with a lot of parts. Believe me, its true. Drop a couple of trees through your roof ( I live in Katrinaland), and find out how hard it is to repair. Even when the plywood is still intact, it isn’t easy. When insurance costed out my new roof the shingle part was only half the cost. Vents, damaged plywood, chimmnys, edging, etc.
As for the shingles vs continuous membranes, well all I can say is imagine a bunch of guys walking around on that membrane-before it has been completely adhered to the roof however that might be done, cutting holes for all the vents in the roof. And don’t forget to get the membrane laid down correctly in all the valleys. And remember rain has a tendancy to find the smallest hole. Roofing crews know how to lay shingles.
Besides, people are conservative in their tastes. If all your neighbors have shingle roofs, they aren’t going to welcome someone trying something new.
I visited a model home at our state university. It was deliberately half-built. They had some very impressive membranes available for the roof. You can get stuff that looks like it would withstand a bullet much less a hailstorm, but I haven’t seen anyone around here actually use them.
My house and alot of the houses around me have a slate roofs. I like slate. To put on a slate roof today is very expensive and the main reason it isn’t done.
If I have to roof my next house I’ll probably opt for Dura-slate. It is a recycled material that looks like slate. It caries a 50 year warrenty, which is better then most asphault shingles. Cost wise it is more expensive labor wise it’s about the same.
I think asphault shingles look far better then metal roofs. Asphault is generaly cheaper then alternives and it is easy to install. Overall its a decent mid grade product. I can’t think of anything that would compete well against it.
With the large membrane idea it seems like it would have many issues to deal with. It is only as strong as its weakest points. You’d have to do cut outs and seams for chimneys and vents. That would be alot of work.
Flat top buildings use rubber roofing which is seemed togther using a torch. They are not any less likely to leak then shingled roofs. Walk around a wallmart or a home depot during a rain storm or after heavy snow you will see a number of leaks. You could use rubber roofing on a ptched roof and it would probably do a really good job and be far less likely to leak but dahm would it be ugly.
As for steel studs for years they were cheaper. They are not anywhere near as flexable in terms of use as wood. By the time the building market got used to them and started considering steel for different aspects of general home construction, steel studs got more expensive then wood. Today they are still more costly and are mostly used in comercial construction because of fire codes.
Also when considering what is better for the enviroment, why would anyone say using steel is better then wood? Wood grows on trees. It doesn’t involve mining. It uses alot less petrolium to produce and deliver. Most construction lumber is fast growing pine. Damage done is barely noticable less then a generation later.