Tile to metal, so you stop re-pointing it every fifteen years
Converting tile roofs to Colorbond across Canberra, by an A-Class licensed builder.
- ACT A-Class licence 2012B14A
- $20M public liability
- QBE Home Warranty
- MBA ACT member
- Building in Canberra since 2012
Most people convert on the second quote
A tile roof needs its ridge capping re-bedded and re-pointed every fifteen or twenty years. The first time it happens you pay it and think nothing of it. The second time, usually with a few cracked tiles and a couple of leaks thrown in, people start asking what the alternative is.
The alternative is taking the tiles off and putting steel on. You are already spending money on the roof at that point. The question is whether you are spending it on another fifteen years or on the last roof the house will need.
Concrete tiles have a use-by date
Most of Canberra's tile roofs are concrete, and most of them went on between the sixties and the eighties. Concrete tiles get porous with age. They hold water, and in a city that frosts as hard as this one does, water inside a tile expands overnight and breaks it down from the inside. That is why old tiles go brittle and start failing in batches rather than one at a time.
Add hail, moss on the southern pitches, and bedding mortar that has been through forty years of Canberra summers, and you get a roof that needs attention every few years for the rest of its life.
What you actually get out of it
The maintenance cycle stops
No more re-bedding, no re-pointing, no replacing cracked tiles, no moss. A Colorbond roof is checked occasionally and otherwise left alone.
The house carries far less weight
Concrete tiles weigh roughly ten times what steel sheeting does per square metre. Taking them off lifts several tonnes off the frame of the house permanently, which matters on older places and matters more if you are thinking about a second storey later.
Insulation gets sorted properly
The roof is open and the battens are off, so sarking and insulation go in the way they should have originally. In a climate that swings from minus five to forty, this is the part people notice most in the first year.
Hail stops being a worry
Steel dents. Old concrete tiles crack, and a cracked tile leaks from the next storm onward.
What's involved
The tiles and the old battens come off, which exposes the roof frame for the first time since the house was built. Dale checks it and makes good anything that needs it, and on a roof of that age there is usually something. New battens, sarking and insulation go on, then the Colorbond, then the flashings, capping and valleys.
Guttering usually gets replaced at the same time. It is almost always the same age as the roof, and doing it separately later means paying twice to get access.
When not to convert
If your tiles are terracotta rather than concrete and they are still in good order, leave them. Terracotta lasts a long time and there is no argument for pulling a sound one off.
If you are in one of Canberra's heritage precincts, changing the roof material may not be allowed, or may need approval before anyone quotes it. Worth knowing before you get attached to the idea.
And if you are selling inside a year, you will not get the money back. Convert because you are staying.
Tile to metal, answered
What does a tile to metal conversion cost?
It depends on the roof, and Dale won't put a range on it before seeing yours. The things that move the number are the size and pitch, the state of the frame underneath forty years of tile, access for getting the old tiles down and the new sheeting up, and whether the guttering goes at the same time.
What he will do is get up there, look at it, and give you a real figure in writing. A phone quote on a roof he hasn't seen would just be a number that changes later.
How long does it take?
PLACEHOLDER. Awaiting Dale's real timeframes.
Is my house strong enough for it?
Almost certainly, because you are taking weight off rather than adding it. Steel is roughly a tenth the weight of concrete tile. The frame still gets checked once the tiles are off, since that is the only chance anyone gets to look at it.
Will it be noisier when it rains?
Not the way people expect. The insulation and sarking that go in during the conversion do more for sound than the tiles were doing. Houses with bare steel over an open roof space are the ones people remember, and that is not what gets built here.
Do I need approval?
Often yes, because you are changing the external appearance of the house. In a heritage precinct it is close to certain. Dale works out what applies to your address and handles it.
Can you do the gutters at the same time?
Yes, and it is usually the sensible call, because the gutters are the same age as the roof and the access is already paid for. Dale doesn't take on gutter replacement as a job on its own.
What areas do you cover?
Canberra only. Belconnen, Gungahlin, Tuggeranong, Woden Valley, Weston Creek, Molonglo and the inner suburbs.
Due for re-pointing again?
Find out what it would cost to not do it a third time.
Tell Dale about the job
He'll come and look at it, and you'll get a real figure in writing. If it's not a job he should be doing, he'll say so.
Upright Building Services
0468 050 266Extensions, renovations, metal roofing, granny flats and outbuildings. Substantial building work across Canberra.
ACT A-Class builder's licence 2012B14A
NSW builder's licence 314125C
$20M public liability · QBE Home Warranty
Master Builders Association ACT member
What we build
Where we work
- Belconnen
- Gungahlin
- Tuggeranong
- Woden Valley
- Weston Creek
- Molonglo
- Inner Canberra