Informative Discussions on roof design:

New Designs and Exciting Styles - A Shift in West-Coast Home Design

Above editorial discusses bringing Back the Southwest, Californian, Florida and Mediterranean Themes to Building Design in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest BC.

Style preferences in the last 10 years in the Pacific Northwest region... the roof tiles we have been using:

In the past decade, one prominent product and profile has dominated the roof tile market for the Pacific Northwest and Southwest BC regions. It  has been the concrete tiles called the "Shake Tile" produced by various manufacturers in and around the region. This is a flat tile with striations or grooves placed vertically down the 7/8" flat profile tile, and lends the image of stately sawn wood shakes. The over all pattern is horizontal 7/8" thick definition lines across the face of the home, and not too much specific tile definition.

This Shake Tile profile has been adding value to homes built in these regions for almost ten years. The West-coast's contemporary homes has seen the Craftsman style architecture and steep hip roof designs dominate the market, and a flat profile tile was an excellent choice as an alternative to Cedar Shingles and Shakes (a dying product category).

 Dated and far over used Colours:

The prominent colour has largely been "Charcoal", which is a basic black toned tile some roofers or builders believed represented the look of aged cedar. This colour has largely been overused to the point many developments and subdivisions are beginning to look close to slums...no variety in style, colour, or imagination. Very cold, very grey and bleak.

We believe our rainy climate is already too grey, too often, and our homes should have warmer colours added to the roof to enliven our neighborhoods and improve upon an often too dreary look. Changing your flat tiles to browner or weathered wood and driftwood tones can immediately deliver some "warmth" to the roof tones and colours, yet keep it in a shake or slate theme.

In terms of texture on the flat tiles, the striated or brushed surface that gives tiles the softer textures has been allowing the concrete shake tiles to gather debris, algae, and dirt sooner than preferred in the Pacific Northwest. Black or Charcoal is not a good colour for the Pacific Northwest and Western Canadian regions as the rainforest climate generates lots of algae and moss opportunities on roofing, especially tiles.  And this colour displays poorly once green algae, grey or brown dirt as well as our tree needles and leaves show prominently on its surface.

In our professional opinion, the Charcoal colour on brushed and striated tiles actually does a poor job of representing weathered cedar shakes, unless you prefer your new roof to immediately look like an old cedar in its rotting black mould covered stage (and even then cedar roofs rarely achieve "black" overall. If you are designing only to use the neutrality and contrast of "black" tiles this is all well and fine, but when every other house on a street is using the colour as well, the desired effect is diminished on your home, and it will soon blend into a bleak looking "cold" streetscape.

It is good to keep colours relatively consistent in theme on exterior building materials, especially prominent items such as the roof (40% to 75% of a home's curb appeal). One does not wish to see roofs on homes not complimenting or coordinating with next door homes, and one should stay within the framework of an area's design guideline.  When bold purple, cherry red, banana yellow, and related colours are chosen by a wild designer trying to make a "statement" in a home design, one might be taking the "warming up" a bit too far. The neighbors would not likely be pleased, the values in the neighborhood may actually go down overall if it is too unsightly, and the local inspectors may not allow the building to pass inspection. Leave those colours on "Trading Spaces" please, or in the safety of your kids bedroom. The following photos represent the too grey and too bleak colour choices in Shake Tiles.

Better Colours and Texture in Flat Tiles:

We are not recommending that you do whole streets in all brown tiles or all grey tiles, and certainly NOT all black tiles, but recommend that a complimentary theme is chosen for a street or neighborhood, and the roofing materials selected fall within a specific range of colours. In town-home developments one specific colour tile or shingle is often chosen, but the lack of individuality makes the project look like a track home or a low income subsidized housing complex.

The ideal concept as mentioned above is to fall into a specific colour range, and when the theme for a neighborhood is "earth-tone colours shake profile concrete roofing tiles", lets select from "Mother Nature's" palette. The idea of such themes is to mimic real cedar... a west-coast tradition. Real cedar is various light to medium brown tones or dark weathered greys...not black. Chocolate Brown and Nutmeg Brown are also NOT found on real cedar roofs. Actually grey/brown blends with better texture and muted accent flashes along with increased definition of each tile will hold a good representation of wood shake roofs in varying weathered states.

Neighborhood themes may also choose to mimic real Slate, or allow a combination of this and earth-tone weathered wood colours. But even real slate is rarely true black with the exception of certain unfading black slate from New England quarries that offer a really dark grey / blackish rock finish. If you are the only black Slate Look smooth tile in the neighborhood surely you might stand out as a luxurious elegant design, unfortunately the crowd is following too much and your ability to stand out alone and distinctive is unlikely unless you are out on a large stand-alone property.

Roofing materials that mimic real slate is definitely the new trend. Concrete tile manufacturers have been offering what's called "Slate Tiles" for quite some time now. We would see a lot more smooth slate concrete roofs except  the average roofer has been doing his best to talk the builders and homeowners out of this profile for various reasons, with the real motive being that the applicators find smooth finish slate tiles more slippery than they prefer to work on and install on today's steeper pitched roofs. (The striations, or brushing of Shake tiles allows better traction). In reality its a small inconvenience for the roofer for a couple of days work when the roof should last 5 decades and the smooth tile will look better and stay cleaner longer in the West-coast region. If the roofer wants $300 more to install smooth concrete tiles then so be it as a better performing better looking roof is worth it, especially when this small labour cost is factored over 50 years of serviceable life. So if you want to trap dirt and debris on a roof, order brushed, or striated tiles. Otherwise specify smooth slate finishes (with or without bevels or grooves) for longer term good looks and performance.

To better define a "slate" look we recommend accenting the texture of individual tiles by using beveled edges on each side of the concrete roof tile. The stately definition and elegance really stands out compared to traditional flat tiles. Its like comparing beveled edge hardwood to smooth hardwood floors...there is a difference in design, except on a roof which is 40% to 70% of a home's curb appeal it is an even more important design choice. From a distance or from the street level view, which is often 50 feet back or more, some of the texture is lost on many roofs, so beveled edge details become even more important as does depth, texture, and profile.

We can further accent this look by placing one or two grooves ( a central tile bevel or a pair of grooves) on the beveled edge tile to replicate the appearance of smaller wood shakes or quarried slates. This is ideal to better mimic the reality of nature's products while enjoying the value and longevity of manufactured concrete or clay tiles. The profile called "Country Slate" by MonierLifetile Roof Tile is a new single width bevelled edge slate tile. Even better is the "Golden Eagle" from Eagle Roofing (see Kings Canyon Blend) which does a bevelled edge slate tile with two internal grooves as explained above. For a woodsy split shake look we recommend the Split Slate Westcoast Wood (Charcoal Brown Blend) or Coastal Wood (Brown Blend), or a good Tudor slate look with the Charcoal Split Slate, all by Monierlifetile. These are beveled edge Split Shake tiles with a smooth finish, offset cut butt-edge, and a mid tile groove or bevel. Fantastically natural colours make for an exciting yet natural finish that will last for many decades.

Click here to learn about NEW STYLES, COLOURS and TEXTURES for the Pacific Northwest and Southwest BC regions.

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