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Thursday, February 17, 2011

How to Choose A Roof, Part One: Color

Women get it. They know how to choose and match. A well dressed man has a good woman dressing him. Face it, guys would put plaid on plaid, strips on stripes, polka dots on stripes...with no underwear. A side note, roofing uses a lot of dress making terms: selvage,  head lap, blocking out, and ouch.

The same principles that robing yourself well, as opposed to disrobing, apply to selecting a roof color. If you read robbing, rather than robing, then you were thinking of your last roofer.For example, if you have a white brick, don't use whiteroofing. If your brick is plaid, or as we say, variegated, try to stick with a less mottled roof pattern. Solid bricks colors lend themselves to wild and exotic color schemes for roofs.

Dark roofs tend to push roof lines down just like black shirts make short people look shorter. (I just made that up but dark roofs tend to make roofs look more shallow.) Conversely, lighter colors tend to make roofs look higher.

If you have a flat roof it doesn't matter what color it is unless you have a second story to look out of or a roof patio. White high emissivity roofs are the best herein the hell hole of the universe, and I'm referring to the heat.

Compliment your color of brick and paint or siding with colors like brown with tan or red with yellow. Personally I think brown paint is depressing.

In the countryside people can have brilliant colors because the homes are far apart but if you live fifteen feet from your neighbor, your red and green roofs might clash.

Loud siding like solid red or green, obviously chosen by the previous owner, can be toned down by adding a frosted red or green roof. You have to decide which to put on which and if you don't feel comfortable, ask the lady in your life. If you have no master, then find a temporary one to make the choice for you.

If you have a tile or standing seam roof you can go hog wild on color and people will forgive you. But not my dad. When he saw my high profile red steel tile and cream colored siding he said"you look like a Mexican." I told him I didn't but his grandchildren did and he laughed and never mentioned it again. When the deceased old hag down the street saw my icicle Christmas lights, she said my house looked like a taco stand. I went on a diet immediately. But not before giving her the evil eye.

Also available are Energy Star roofs in several colors. As Henry Ford said: you can get it in any color you want as long as it's white, er, black. He was not referring to roof color though.

Most manufacturers have a virtual remodeler that allows you select a roof after imputing a similar style home from dozens of examples, the brick color, and paint color. GAF even allows you to download  a picture of a home. We used to just take a Polaroid of a home, cut out the roof, and lay the picture over the color swatches.

The color of roof is much easier to select than the style. That requires a little architectural savvy.

As a fellow student in college so profoundly said: taste is a matter of taste.

Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

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