by Pat Quarve, Owner Metal roofing is quickly becoming one of the most popular choices for residential roofing.  It's already at the top of most architects' lists.  And if you've been paying attention to the tiny house movement, owners of these mini-homes almost always choose metal to protect their dwellings.  At our Minnesota roofing company we've chosen to specialize in metal roofing for a number of reasons:  it's eco-friendly, it lasts an incredibly long time, and it stands up exceptionally well to severe weather like hail.

Metal Roofing from Kassel & Irons

We currently install metal roofing from two different manufacturers.  For our main roofing, we are actually a dealer; we buy from the manufacturer and are manufacturer trained.  That way the manufacturer can control the installation and control their branding.  They don’t want just anyone putting it on.  That’s one of the reasons we became a dealer for Kassel & Irons metal roofing from Isaiah Industries. 

As a dealer/installer, we do get the manufacturer’s training. And instead of flying our guys to Piqua, Ohio, where the company is located, we actually built a roof in our shop and had the trainers come here.  So we were able to get manufacturer trained at our place of business.   They are good to work with because they help us with all the legs – the marketing, the samples, the sales aids, and the production training.  They are very service-oriented towards us, which helps the customer.

Kassel & Irons is privately owned.  Todd Miller, the president now, bought it from his dad, Don Miller, back in the 1980s.  Don Miller had bought it from Alcoa.   Alcoa is one of the big players in the building materials industry.  (Visit our home page to watch a video where Todd shares about our metal roofing.)

Kassel & Irons metal roofing has a lot of qualities we like, especially the finish.  When you're shopping for metal roofing you want something with a Kynar® finish.  (There is also HI-R Kynar®.)  There is metal roofing that has a polyester finish, but all the Kassel & Irons metal roofing lines have a Kynar® finish so you don’t have to worry about fading.  Kynar® has diamond shaped crystals, so when the UV rays enter the paint it bounces out.  The UV rays then doesn’t break the paint down, where polyester has organic paint pigments that the UV rays break down.  But you don’t notice this until a number of years later when you thought you had a brown roof and now it’s lighter – white or green or blue. Metal roofing that has the polyester finish fades out really bad at about year 10.

And there are other advantages.  Their metal roofing systems have an open valley, and this is good for Minnesota.  Some roofs have a closed valley, but with an open valley the snow and ice and debris slide right out.  A closed valley holds everything and it doesn’t look very good. A closed valley would be where you put J-channels back to back and then you slide the pieces into it or you slide the pieces together and then put a cap over the top of it.  That’s closed – enclosed.  With an open valley system, we have a custom vented valley piece that has a hem where we custom bend our piece around and hook into it.  The hem is about 3” out from the valley on each side, so you’re looking at 6” of the valley with custom metal roofing bent into it so it cleans itself out and no debris gets hung up.

There's another excellent feature about how this roofing is designed. The way the panels hold together is that they are interlocking versus overlapping.  A lot of the metal roofing systems out there have overlapping seams.  With high winds the snow and debris get under the seams.  There is a big difference in performance with overlapping seams versus interlocking seams.

Another main reason we like this metal roofing is that the roofs are air permeable.  The metal roofing panels sit up off the roof a little bit so we’re not transferring a lot of hot and cold into the attic.  We’re finding that with roofing like the standing seam it’s touching the roof so the attic isn’t cool, and then with tornadoes they get more wind uplift.  So that’s why we like the ones that are more air permeable.  That’s part of the way their panels are made.

With Kassel & Irons roofing there are a lot of options in styles and colors.  They have quite a few colors and design profiles – a heavy, thick looking shake and a smaller shake.  We tend to work on a lot of one and a half story homes, and these homes look a little bit better with a smaller shake than a 12” thick shake.  Your shingles are 5” and when you put 12” metal roofing on that house it would overpower the roof.

Almost every asphalt roofing shingle warranty out there now is a lifetime warranty, but a lifetime warranty to mean doesn’t mean too much anymore because of the pro-ration part of it.  The warranty offered by Isaiah Industries is actually lifetime to the homeowner, and then it’s for 40 years, non-prorated, with 100% labor and materials for any other owners the house may have. 

Metal Roofing from EDCO/ArrowLine®

Another metal roofing line we have is EDCO/ArrowLine®.  This is a local company out in Hopkins.  They have a lot of different colors and styles of the shake and slate metal roofing.  They offer a lot of options in their metal roofing line.  Similarly with this roofing we can do the open valley and air permeability for air to get underneath it.  And it’s got a Kynar® finish as well (their brand name for the finish is TRINAR®.

ArrowLine® metal roofing panels are also designed with an interlocking system, and this roofing will withstand winds up to 160 mph, which is greater than any high winds we've gotten here in Minnesota, even with tornadoes and straight line winds.  Their metal roofing is available in shake or slate styles in a number of colors, and it also comes with a lifetime non-prorated warranty.

Which roofing is the best choice for your home?  That depends on a lot of factors.  But we can go through the qualities of each as well as the cost and help you choose.   If you'd like to find out more about metal roofing for your home, please give us a call.  Our consultations are always free and without obligation.  And to see just how gorgeous a metal roof can be, visit our Pinterest page to take a look at some of our projects.