Metal Roofing in St. Louis

We stick to manufacturer specification on each component and explain why each step matters, instead of quietly cutting one to lower the bid.

Standing seam is the system most people picture. The panels lock together at raised ribs and the fasteners are hidden underneath, so nothing holding the roof down is exposed to weather. It is the more expensive of the two by a wide margin, and it is what we recommend when a homeowner intends to stay in the house.

Exposed-fastener panel, the corrugated or R-panel look, screws through the face of the metal into the framing with a rubber washer under each screw head. It costs far less per square. The trade-off is those washers: they are the wear item, they dry out and compress over roughly fifteen to twenty years, and a panel roof that never gets its fasteners re-torqued starts leaking at a thousand small points rather than one obvious one.

Thermal movement separates a metal roof that lasts from one that oil-cans and works loose. A long steel panel in a Missouri July expands measurably against the same panel in January. Standing seam handles that with concealed clips that let the panel slide. A panel screwed tight at every point cannot move, so it works against its own fasteners every season.

Hail deserves a straight answer. Metal does not lose granules the way asphalt does and it very rarely leaks after a hail event. What it does is dent. On a residential standing seam roof those dents are usually cosmetic, and many carriers treat them that way, which means a hail claim on metal often pays far less than a homeowner expects. Thicker gauge steel and a textured or matte finish hide strikes far better than a smooth, dark, high-gloss panel.

Where metal earns its cost in this metro is on the sections shingles were never meant to cover: porch roofs, bay windows, additions and dormer tie-ins running under a three-in-twelve pitch. We install a great deal of metal as an accent on an otherwise shingled house for exactly that reason, and it is a much smaller number than a full metal reroof.

Snow retention matters on anything steep above a walkway, a door or a driveway. A metal roof sheds an entire slope at once, and it does it without warning.