Metal roofing in Wasaga Beach

Asphalt shingles resist wind by staying stuck together. Each tab is bonded to the one below by a sealant strip, and the whole system depends on those bonds holding. On the Wasaga shoreline, sustained wind works at that bond continuously, and once it goes on one tab the neighbours are exposed in turn. That is the mechanism behind almost every wind failure we repair here.

A standing-seam metal roof does not work that way. The panels run continuously from ridge to eave, they are locked to each other at the seam, and they are fastened to the deck with concealed clips rather than through the face of the material. There is no tab for wind to lift and no exposed fastener to work loose. The failure mode that ends asphalt roofs on this exposure simply is not present.

That is the real argument for metal in Wasaga, and it is a stronger one than the general durability case. It is not that metal lasts longer in the abstract; it is that the specific thing that kills roofs here does not apply to it.

There are two quite different products both sold as metal roofing, and the distinction matters more on an exposed site than anywhere else. Exposed-fastener steel, the ribbed profile common on agricultural buildings, is screwed through the face of the panel with a rubber-washered screw at every fastening point. It is considerably cheaper and it is a perfectly reasonable roof on a barn.

On a wind-exposed house it has a weakness: every one of those washers is a seal with a finite life, and there are thousands of them. As they harden, they stop sealing, and panels loosen. Wind accelerates the whole process. It is not that exposed-fastener steel fails quickly, it is that it needs maintenance at intervals and eventually re-fastening.

Standing seam costs more and has no exposed fasteners at all. On the Wasaga shoreline that difference is worth paying for on a house. On a detached garage or a shed, exposed-fastener steel is often the sensible economy, and we will say so.

Metal costs roughly two to three times asphalt up front. Whether that is a good decision depends almost entirely on one question: how long do you intend to own the property? A metal roof that lasts fifty years is excellent value if you are there for thirty of them and poor value if you sell in four, because you will not recover the premium in the sale price.

For rental and investment properties the calculation is different again and often favours metal, because you are trading a large one-time cost against decades of not scheduling repairs, not losing booked weeks to roofing work, and not fielding calls about leaks.

We would rather work that through with you than assume. If asphalt is the right answer for your situation we will quote it and install it well; we are not trying to talk everyone into the more expensive product.