Top 3 Roofing Materials For A Mansard Roof With Dormers

Mansard roofs, a staple of Victorian-era inspired architecture, offer the opportunity for forward-facing ornamentation. Mansards frequently have dormers, or protruding windows with small roofs of their own, which adds a touch of visual interest to the otherwise flat side roofs and adds natural light. If you have a mansard roof with dormers that needs a new roof, there are some roofing materials that will add additional benefits.

Here are a few of the top roofing materials for mansards with dormers that you can discuss with your roofing contractors.

Slate Shingles

Mansard roofs have a timeless, elegant quality that pairs wonderfully with slate tiles or shingles. Slate is available in a range of natural colors but dark gray tones look particularly striking on a mansard, especially if your home has lighter color walls.

The physical smoothness of slate can help the low-sloped upper part of the mansard roof drain water off better. And the fact that slate tiles can easily be cut to fit means that your roofers can carefully frame the dormer roofs and surrounding main roof so that no waterproofing issues arise.

Price is the main negative factor of slate. If the roofing material is only slightly out of your budget, ask your roofing contractors about extended payment plans. Or choose another roofing material that looks attractive and offers its own benefits.

Wood Shingles

Wood shingles are typically made of cedar and can be stained a range of nature-inspired shades. Wood shingles tend to be a bit lighter in color than darker slate tiles, but the textured appearance of wood can add an interesting cottage look that the slate doesn't provide. And wood roofing is typically more affordable than slate.

Wood is also more high maintenance, particularly if you live in an area with freezing winters and hot summers. The weather shifts cause the wood to contract and expand, which can cause wear and tear. Wood is also more difficult to cut to fit, which can potentially cause some waterproofing issues around the dormers.

Metal Roofing

You might not want to do your entire mansard roof in metal roofing even though the material has become vastly more attractive in recent years as production techniques improved. But you can use metal to help fortify wood roofs or to help bring down the project costs of a slate roof.

Metal roofing can be easily cut to size and blended into another roofing material, which means the metal can be used around the dormer roof connection points where wood roofing might not be sufficient. The metal is great at facilitating water runoff in general, so is also a good choice for the uppermost portion of the roof, which isn't visible from the ground.

Using metal on the top and slate on the sides can still let your mansard have the look of a slate roof without as steep of a price tag.

For metal roofing options, contact a business such as Norsteel Building Systems Ltd metal roofing.


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