Standing seam roof questions

[HunterWare]

Good afternoon GJ,

I'll be starting a build post in the other forum soon, but I have one thing I'm trying to understand while finalizing the plans for my barn/garage... The roof.

I am building a 24x36 main structure, 10ft sidewalls on the first floor, 5ft sidewalls on the second floor, and a 12/12 roof above. There will be a 12ft wide 3/12 shed-roof side wing on what I'll call the right side. The three garage doors are on the front gable of the main structure (two) and side wing (one). There are two dormers (8ft wide each, 3/12) on the side of the main roof that overlooks the shed. With the exception of the dormers, however, this is a pretty simple roof. The main roof and shed roofs do not meet, there is a 2-3" drop between the bottom of the main roof and the start of the shed roof. I currently am planning 2ft overhangs all around on the main roof, and 1ft overhangs for the dormer and shed roofs. This leads us to 2200sq/ft of sheathing/roof area total. The look of the barn will be old school vermont barn'ish with board and batten siding, red stain...

So I'm looking for a modern implementation:

• Beams inside for clear span interior even through into the "shed"

• Zip R-sheathing & closed cell foam insulation (hot roof)

• Cathedral ceiling in the loft

• Low E windows and insulated garage doors

But on a classic theme:

• Stained exterior from wood on site

• Wood covered garage doors

• Simple standing seam metal roof

• Simple/clean lines).

I have two quotes from reputable supply houses for an owner/contractor installable standing seam snap-together roof (40yr, colored, 26ga, hidden fasteners, 16" seams, 1" high seams) within a couple hundred of each other at basically $4400, and I'm told that it would take a week or two for 3-4 of us to put it all together and go from sheathing to done. (Same people doing the framing)

I also have a quote from a roofing company to do a custom standing seam roof for about $18k. The metal is the same, the paint/finish is similar, the warranty is even about the same. They come out with flat stock and pan it right there. I guess that makes it a true "seamed" standing seam roof. As far as I can tell that only means the seams look a little narrower and there is less "stuff" at ends/corners/ridges/transitions with the custom roof.

My question is basically the annoying open-ended "what should I do". I don't feel that I understand what the difference is between the two options well enough to understand what the value proposition is here. Anything to help make the call on whether the custom is worth it, or also whether the precut has a drawback that I'm missing... because right now I just don't see it. (I would also love experiences/pictures with Central States Horizon-Loc or Snap-Loc if you have it)

Thanks in advance for the help,
Hunter

(I threw in the floor plan in case anyone was interested. You can see the beam runs most of the wall between the main structure and the shed, which opens the clear span across the garage. On the top left is a to-be woodshop, and the top right is an entrance room with stairs that cut a bit into the shop and go up into the second floor. The slab in the shed side is 6" and level so that I could add a (low) lift someday if that comes to pass.)

 

[readhead]

I take it that you have never installed a standing seam roof. Do you have access to a brake? Do you have the equipment to work on that steep of a roof? You would only have a material warranty. The roofing company would warranty the whole installation. I ran the numbers and the price did not seem out of line. The amount of work in those dormers where the pitch changes is quite a bit. Think about installing the ridge cap after the roof is on. I think you probably can see where I am going. I commend you for your choice in material. Most people want the cheap screw down roofing. Comming from the sheet metal trade I could never understand why someone would put a metal roof on and then drill a thousand holes through it. A good quality standing seam roof installation is difficult and time consuming.

 

[DonB]

This roof on my new 32x40 barn near Saratoga Springs, NY was installed last month.
The standing seam roof cost $13K, the best money I've spent to date on the project. It is 26gauge, 24" wide, approx. 1 inch tall seam, 2400 sq ft, professional installation. The rolled metal was delivered then formed on site.
My shop will occupy one half of the lower floor, 16x40. The other side will be for storage of toys. The second floor will house my 'stuff' that I've been collecting all my life. If anyone's interested I'll start a build thread.
Don

 

[joe_padavano]

The difference in cost is the hand labor. We had true, hand-formed, copper standing seam roof installed on our 300 yr old log house. I installed the snap-together steel roofing on the garage I built nearby. I got a tarnished copper color that is close to the roof on the house. It is obviously not the same, but it's close enough. Either will last longer than you will. I installed the snap-together myself.

 

[Architorture]

what lengths are they offering for the do-it-yourself roof? if you end up with a seam halfway down the roof you are asking for trouble

 

[tornadocaster]

Redhead is right! I supplied the metal to a home very similar to yours and it took an experienced installer around 2 weeks. The devil is in the details. If you order the right material you can get away without a brake but you definately need some specialized hand tools. I always suggest a garage or small home to get your feet wet before a project like this. There is a great website with a collection of videos that I suggest to my customers.
Www.armourmetals.com look under videos.
If you are going to tackle this job on your own, invest in a high quality underlay and ice and water shield. Something that allows you to work at your pace and not worry about bad weather ( within reason)
Good luck
Cheers
Giovanni

 

[AMCguy]

They would likely be the exact same product. The big difference in price comes from where the metal is formed.

The supplier of the material roll forms the pieces made to measure in a shop. That's largely all they do. The shop is well setup for this. The roll former is generally more robust. The labour is fairly unskilled and relatively cheap. When the metal is roll formed in the field it takes a lot longer. The conditions are less favorable. They work out of a truck often standing in the mud. They generally take measurements and call them down to the guys on the ground rather than work from a plan. This is all done by much higher paid roofers. I've been on my share of job sites and seen it done. I can see where the money goes.

tornadocaster is right. It does require some specialized tools and you would have to set up a temporary cutting station. I think the amount you would save would make it very worth your while. Plus you'd end up with more tools.

 

[Tucko]

I take it that you have never installed a standing seam roof. Do you have access to a brake? Do you have the equipment to work on that steep of a roof? You would only have a material warranty. The roofing company would warranty the whole installation. I ran the numbers and the price did not seem out of line. The amount of work in those dormers where the pitch changes is quite a bit. Think about installing the ridge cap after the roof is on. I think you probably can see where I am going. I commend you for your choice in material. Most people want the cheap screw down roofing. Comming from the sheet metal trade I could never understand why someone would put a metal roof on and then drill a thousand holes through it. A good quality standing seam roof installation is difficult and time consuming.

I agree with this. A good quality standing seam roof takes a bit of knowledge. I can assure you you'll need access to at least an 8 foot handbrake. 26 ga. also seems very light to me. If you get something that light, don't ever plan on walking on it...And remember to allow for expansion of the metal. Done improperly, the metal will eventually fatigue and tear, and it'll be LEAK CITY!

 

[Mr onetwo]

I had standing seam installed on my house 3 years ago.Very simple house, no dormers,ect.It has a 12/12 pitch and I spec'ed 24 ga. commercial metal with white Kynar 50 year finish.The crew did a great job for around $8000.IMHO this is no job for an amateur.Your installed price seems pretty good.What is your time worth? And what if someone falls off the steep roof and gets hurt or killed!Have you checked to see what the liability insurance would be! Also, who are YOU(as in YOU are going to fix it) going to call when you have a leak! I will just call my roofers and let them take care of it. Save your money on some other part of the project IMHO!You should think about 24ga. metal....26 is standard residential.Good luck!

 

[deter]

If it were me, I'd go with the full meal deal.

 

[HunterWare]

Thank you all:

A couple things from the responses:
I built my tractor shed (20x20 with a 4/12 shingled roof) but I've never installed a metal roof. I used to do Fire/Rescue work on ropes so I'm not too worried about working at height. I'm not thinking of installing a from-scratch metal roof, only precut. I do have access to my contractor's tools as I'll be building this with them (brake, metal saw, etc). Really I'm just trying to decide understand if there is a quality, look, value, or something-else difference between a precut system and a custom metal roof.

The precut metal roof quotes I am thinking about both took my full plans and bid it down to the inch... Every panel, seam, trim piece. They give you a pdf plan and you (supposedly) just start with the bottom and edge trim and then move across the whole face, ending with the other edge and ridge trim. You do some cutting and folding during install but otherwise it's pretty much screw, snap, and a little butal tape here and there. The products look nice from their literature but it's tough to get real confidence from that... It's especially tough to get a good feel on owner happiness down the road. Has anyone here installed a precut snap-loc type metal roof and really loves it?

A good example is the Central States system, which can be seen here on YouTube: CentralStatesMfg

The custom bid just seemed high. There are no 45s (hips and valleys) in the roof. I have two large single plane expanses (the shed roof and non-dormered gable roof) and one gable roof with two shed-roof dormers. Everyone around here keeps saying that it's a week job, but then saying that it's 5k on materials (which is odd because the pre-cut materials cost less than that shipped) and 13k for labor which seems high for given the precut people tell me it would take us a week to install their roof if we'd done it before. They say they'd expect my contractor and I to be done in under two weeks even being first time installers of this product. OTOH the precut houses may be painting a super-rosy picture.

I very much appreciate what I've seen in this thread regarding the pricing, but even here I'm seeing examples more in line with the 12k that I had expected for pretty clean roof design. To keep the question general, I'm trying to understand why the custom roof would be worth double what the precut will cost even including estimated labor of 3 contractors for 1.5 weeks (Same gauge, same paint, same material warranty).

Here's a couple pics of that first shed for reference (you really can do a lot of work with a tiny tractor, I even did all the excavation with its backhoe). This barn will of course take things to another level as it will be converted to occupied space (for the loft office/apartment), steeper, and over twice as tall. On that note, I love the architectural shingles and would happily put them on the barn (plenty of barns around here have them... not quite 50/50 but almost) but the hot roof might make that difficult. I'm getting seriously mixed signals on whether singles would work well on a unvented roof.

Thanks for helping me to sort this out,
Hunter

 

[joe_padavano]

what lengths are they offering for the do-it-yourself roof? if you end up with a seam halfway down the roof you are asking for trouble

The vendor I use provides panels cut to the length I specify. This is NOT the Home Depot off-the-rack material.

By the way, so long as you have adequate overlap at the seam, it is not a problem. You have a seam where the ridge cap goes on - how is that any different?

In any case, my roof doesn't have seams because I ordered the lengths I needed. In my case it was a little over 20 ft.

 

[HunterWare]

Thank you Joe, that's what I'm looking at too. Do you like the roof?

I'm really trying to understand how happy people are with the custom (to the inch) precut vs the fully custom folded-on site roof. Otherwise what is the value proposition for the fully custom?

 

[jbs]

This roof on my new 32x40 barn near Saratoga Springs, NY was installed last month.
The standing seam roof cost $13K, the best money I've spent to date on the project. It is 26gauge, 24" wide, approx. 1 inch tall seam, 2400 sq ft, professional installation. The rolled metal was delivered then formed on site.
My shop will occupy one half of the lower floor, 16x40. The other side will be for storage of toys. The second floor will house my 'stuff' that I've been collecting all my life. If anyone's interested I'll start a build thread.
Don

Looks great. I am definitely interested in a build thread!

 

[HunterWare]

That looks like a beautiful gambrel barn, I'd love to see it!