As soon as the shell of the home was complete we got moving on getting the roofing completed, in parallel with installation of the windows. There were/are four roof surfaces, the top surface pitched 1″ per 12″, and the other surfaces were all flat with plans calling for tapered foam to bring to 1/4″ per 12″.
The top roof was sufficiently pitched for a metal roof, and given the salt air environment we opted for an aluminum standing seam roof. Our roofing contractor used coil from Englert and we picked Dove Gray for the Kynar coating (I think we used 0.032″ aluminum). At this point we had pretty much settled on using Cembonit (now called Patina) in their pearl color for the siding, with a couple of accent walls in Trespa Pura in their romantic walnut, with lower level and trim (and windows) in a bronze color.
For the flat roof surfaces we looked into monolithic (liquid applied) membranes, which are pretty cool, but cost was 2-3x the cost for EPDM. Liquid membranes we looked at included Soprema Alsan RS and Kemper. Our (local) roofer, who was one of our best subs, said he had some experience with these, but for residential construction I think these are a pretty esoteric choice. Our concern with EPDM, which turned out to be misplaced, was rubber tire smell when the roof got hot, and to a lesser extent longevity/durability. It really did not smell, even when new. There are liquid coatings that can be applied to EPDM to increase reflectivity and longevity, we could still put one of these down at some point.
For roof and overhang fascia the plans called for 1x Azek trim painted (it only comes in flat white color) to match window trim (so for us a dark bronze color). The idea of having to repaint trim was not at all attractive to us, 30-odd feet up in the air. Our goal with all exterior material selections was to pick things that were low or no maintenance. I rebuilt a deck at our last house and used TimberTech full PVC boards and fascia. TimberTech has since been acquired by Azek and their boards are capped, but they still make and sell colored PVC fascia boards that are 0.5″x11.75″x12′. The boards are expensive at a little over $100 per, but the Azek warranty is impressive and the color (we picked cypress) is hanging in there 3 or so years in. The roofing crew put the fascia up and found the rim and outer joists to not be very fair, so there was a lot of shimming to get the fascia to be straight.
There are special colored fasteners for the fascia and also a bit for pre-drilling/countersinking that creates a hole that is a bit larger than the screw to allow for movement (PVC moves a lot with temperature). The crew did not really follow the instructions and fixed the fascia without allowing for movement in many places. So far it is holding up.
The crew flashed the roof/wall connections with copper, not sure exactly what this does, but I think they knew what they were doing. That said, this joint was problematic in a couple of spots where the EPDM was brought up the side of the Zip system sheathing, creating a reverse lap that for me is a fatal flaw of this approach. More on this in another post, but we had leaking problems at this joint and we ended up wrapping the entire home using VaproShield’s RevealShield SA, making the Zip sheathing sort of a waste of time and money. The Zip panels are also OSB, which for strength is inferior to plywood. Lesson learned, for me plywood sheathing and a high quality wrap/vapor barrier are the way to go.
The metal roof can be quite noisy on hot, windy summer days. Not sure if this is because of an installation problem, or if it is just a metal roof thing. But it is loud enough that it is a little annoying. Also if we get a melt and then a freeze you can get some pretty hefty ice slabs that eventually get cut by the seams and then slide off onto the roof below, with a large bang. Given that the roof below is EPDM over rigid foam the makes me worry about getting a puncture, so when these conditions occur I go up to manage the movement of ice from upper to lower roof. I am not sure if there is a better way or not. Our neighbor has some snow guards on his standing seam roof, perhaps we should look into putting some of those up. There are also some little stick on shark fins that supposedly slice the ice into smaller chunks.