Metal roofing offers a great variety of styles, materials, and colors. This guide focuses on color selection. — The item that every home owner can easily relate to.
Styles relate to the shape of the metal when installed on a roof, such as standing seam, corrugated panels, or tiles. Practically speaking, color considerations don’t matter to the style, though some styles will present slightly different colors and paint finishes.
Materials correlate with the type of metal, also called “substrate.” The popular choices for homes today are steel, aluminum, and copper. For the most part, we stick to steel and aluminum as the likely choice for most readers.
Our attention is on color. We’ll cover available options, general information on color, smart factors for selecting color and wrap up with some technical information dealing with the manufacturing of paint for metal roofs as it matters to the consumer (you).
Color choice may seem like a subjective decision, but our Guide presents (10) considerations that really shouldn’t be overlooked. There is an art and science that comes into play. Our goal is to make sure you are well versed in the considerations as well as related information.
Available Options
Surprisingly, many people think of metal roofs as having limited color options. Perhaps they think the color matches the type of metal. Silver for steel, tin and aluminum; reddish-brown for copper; dark gray for lead. As if those are the extent of the color options. With aluminum and steel, the options are a bit more than these few options. Actually, strike that. The options are limitless! The correct answer to: what are the available color options for a metal roof? All of them. All colors, hues and tints.
Instead of selecting among a few options, the homeowner actually has limitless options to choose from. In some ways, that may seem more daunting. The rest of the article will help simplify things. Well, at least until we get to the technical information.
Examples of Metal Shingle Colors
Typical Color Samples from a vendor
Contractors or metal roof vendors are highly likely to keep a limited amount of colors in stock. These are a mixture of popular choices as well as colors deemed best for metal roofs by manufacturers. If for any reason, none of their options appeal to you, there is always the possibility to order a custom-made color. Obviously, this would come with an additional cost as the contractor or vendor has to purchase it as a unique item rather than something they can buy in bulk.
Not so surprisingly, consumers tend to go with the colors that are in stock. These tend to vary from vendor to vendor. The hue changes slightly so as to provide a unique offering. Some colors may be nearly identical between two vendors, but have a different name. All part of the marketing and positioning of vendors in the marketplace. What you are unlikely to find from the specialty vendors (who stock metal roofing material specifically), is standard, or pure colors. Notice in the sample chart (above) there is no yellow, nor a bright green. While blue and red are present, the options in this set aren’t bright. Vendors tend to go with muted tones. The reason: brighter / flashier colors are ones that tend to fade fairly quickly. As, color choice is mostly subjective, there is no reason to think of any color as off limits. Just understand that the pros understand color at a level that the average person may not be aware of.
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