If you are a homeowner considering installing a metal roof on your house, but are worried that it will make your house look like a barn, then consider installing an architectural metal shingles roofing system, which can provide the same superior performance as other premium types of residential metal roofing.

A metal shingles roof offers a unique look of conventional roofing materials and systems including slate, cedar shingles, tiles, and more.

With an average cost of $850 per square (100 sq. feet), a metal shingles roof is about 30% less expensive than a comparable quality, architectural standing seam roof, while providing the same level of roof protection, durability and longevity.

If you own a classic colonial type home or a house made of brick, then a metal shingles roof is definitely one of the ways to go, especially if you want to preserve that authentic look, yet, have all the benefits of a metal roof.

What is Metal Shingles?

Interlocking metal shingle roof is the second most popular type of residential metal roofing, after standing seam. There is a huge variety of different metal shingle styles from many different manufacturers. Most common metals used to manufacture metal shingles are G90 galvanized steel and aluminum, though you can also find a few types of copper and even zinc shingles.

Metal shingles are manufactured using a stamping press, through which the metal coil is fed, and the die stamps the shingle in two or three steps.

First, the profile of the shingle is stamped out, with the lock flanges. Then, in steps 2 and 3, the locks are made, and the shingles come out of the press and in is packaged into the box.

Most modern metal shingle systems come with a baked on Kynar 500 or equivalent premium paint, with a total of seven layers of paint and primer, baked onto the metal coil.

Metal Shingle Styles:

Distinguishing characteristic of metal roofing shingles is the low profile and a four-way interlocking design. Low profile allows for easy walking on the metal shingles (during installation) without damaging the shingles, and a simplified roof flashing system.

Most popular styles of metal include cedar shingles impression and natural slate impression. These metal shingles can will closely resemble both type of premium roofing materials, but will cost ether the same (as in case with cedar shingles) or considerably less (slate impression metal shingles) to install, and will last a lot longer.

Another popular type of metal shingles is a simple flat tile impression, which is basically a smooth surface metal shingle, with stiffening ribs in the middle, which create the look of separate tiles. Same stiffening ribs are used in all other types of metal shingles.

Installation Basics:

Most metal shingles systems are installed from the eave of the roof, up. The first course of shingles is locked or hooked onto the drip edge / starter trim, which is nailed or screwed to the properly prepared roof deck. Metal shingles are attached to the roof using nail and either special built-in hems or clips.

Once the first row of shingles is installed, most roofing contractors start “building a stair” or staggering the shingles and adding rows on one side of the roof so that each new diagonal run of shingles would have as many shingles as possible.

Basic premise here, is that you don’t want to install one row at a time, by going from one end of the roof to another. You want to run as many rows of shingles at once, as possible. See the video below, which will demonstrate the installation of aluminum interlocking metal shingles.

Installing curb flashing on a metal shingles roof:

Unlike a standing seam metal roof, where the ribs/locks demand the use of z-bar flashing for any curds and other rectangular roof penetrations, and make it very difficult to flash roof penetrations such as chimneys and skylights.

The flashing detail on a metal shingles roof is much easier to implement, and it works better, as the low profile of metal shingles does not require the use of a Z-bar flashing.