A sustainable investment for your dream home

By Dani Sheehan. 

Hear from an expert in metal roofing and siding products to see why choosing a metal roof for your home offers a wide range of sustainability benefits without compromising on beauty. 

As a consumer today, you have choices for everything. So, when it comes to investing in a new roof, it can be overwhelming to find the best product for your needs and to match your aesthetic. We recently sat down with Richard King, marketing manager of AEP Span, to discuss why he feels a metal roof is the best option to achieve your dream home. Aside from a variety or color choices and the durability of choosing metal over other roofing materials, metal roofing provides various sustainability benefits not only for the environment, but within your home. 

The term “cool” is standard on metal roofing these days, but maybe not everyone knows what that term means. Richard puts it this way: “It’s not cool because it’s trendy, but the way that paints achieve their color is through what’s called pigments, which is this insoluble powder that’s added to the mix. Cool pigments are scientifically modified to better reflect heat from the structure. And that means you reflect the heat [from the roof] and you can help reduce heat that’s transferred to the structure.” 

Less heat being transferred to the structure means a reduction in your energy costs throughout the year. If you live in an urban area, you are also contributing to the reduction of the heat island effect. Richard tells us, “The heat island effect outlines that building and urban environments (such as parking lots), absorb more heat than the natural environments they replace, leading to higher temperatures in urban environments due to trapped heat.” By helping to reflect heat rather than trap it in surfaces, we can help cool urban areas overall. 

Additionally, metal roofs last 50 years on average, which is three to four times longer than other roofing types, so you are cutting down on the amount of material being sent to the landfill. Richard continues, “When you get a metal product, it’s made to the exact requirements of the roof. So that means there’s very little scrap on the job site. If there is scrap, or at the end of its life, it can be recycled indefinitely. Unlike other products, when it comes to the end of life and you’re looking to recycle it or send it to the landfill, often there can be a degradation in quality. So, you can’t use it for the original purpose.” 

AEP Span has a variety of cool color options and a color visualizer on their website that uses AI technology to help you make the perfect choice. Simply take a photo of your roof and start visualizing a metal roof on your home in seconds.