Informative Discussions on roof design:

Bringing Back the Southwest, Californian, Florida and Mediterranean Themes to Building Design in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest BC:

In the past decade in our region the overuse of Flat Tile and Shake Tile profiles, especially the cold and dreary Black, Charcoal, and Dark Grey colours, screams out that change is required to bring back excitement and renewal to our tired worn out designs being repeated over and over.

A quick look at the building designs in California, Florida, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Scottsdale makes it obvious that our Pacific Northwest and Southwest BC region's home design professionals have severely over-used our dated roof and home design styles currently being built. Its time for change.

The Florida and Californian influence, which follows a Mediterranean architectural theme is used extensively in those southern states when designing buildings and their associated roof designs. We truly believe that our region needs to add these wonderfully styled, roofs,  homes and buildings with their warm Mediterranean colours and executive class elegant textures to our region. 

Often all it takes to create a Mediterranean look to simple or complex roof designs is to add the texture of Clay Tiles or high profile Concrete Tiles such as the Eagle "Capistrano" or Clay Two piece "S" tiles.  The definition that this tile texture adds to any design of home, small or large is unmistakably elegant. It adds real value as well as curb appeal to virtually any shape of roof, and creates the perception that the home is much more valuable and inviting than the old fashioned concrete flat tile appearance.

High profile Clay and Concrete tile certainly provides the texture and definition that asphalt shingles, cedar shingles, flat tiles, or metal roofing could never bring to the architectural design of the building. The only exception would be super thick architectural shingles such as the Presidential Shake "TL" triple layer slate look shingles, or the Certainteed Grand Manor, and these wouldn't be following the Mediterranean theme of design.

Warm earth-tones and clay colours also add the desired effect for the Florida and Mediterranean themes. But don't restrict yourself to these colours as Glazed Green, Blue, Desert Browns, and other shades (if permitted in the development design scheme) add drama and excitement. 

The elegant design of high profile "S" tiles is a great architectural look. But using clay and earth-tone colours with well-textured flat tiles can add a Normandy or French Provincial Slate Look, or even a Caribbean style to a buildings design.

Many of the photos above show sun and palm trees, but all these designs will work in the Southwest BC and Pacific Northwest area. The key is to coordinate the colours of all the exterior siding, brick, stone, and trim colours  such that you can have a bold or subtle statement with the textures and colours of the roofing tiles.  You can still use the same old taupe, beiges, greys, and creams, or you can adventure into yellows, clays, darker tones, or greens for your theme. Be as innovative as possible, avoid the black tiles where possible, (unless by some miracle your the only grey or black tile in the neighbourhood), and your project will stand out as the best looking most valuable piece of real estate in the area. Remember, texture, variety (not extreme), and warm tones will bring the look of Belair California to our rainy northern West-coast region, and add flair and "pizzazz" to the neighborhood.

Ask us about our newest product ...

Pro-Shake Plus Clay Shake Tiles.

 We have just introduced our newest clay tile to our region. It looks like wood shakes. It is lightweight so that it can be used to re-roof homes with existing cedar shakes. But it is made from real clay, Grade One Clay in fact.

US Tile, the largest clay tile manufacturer in North America, owned by Boral Tile (also one of the largest clay tile manufacturers in the world), are experts in the production of quality clay tiles. They invented Pro-Shake a number of years ago, but we only recently discovered the product and its benefits.

This year US Tile has made an improvement to the look and realism of their clay shake tile, and now calls it the PRO Shake Plus. We think it is an outstanding style and replication of wood shakes. The new butt edge design has improved the look and texture of the roofscape, and we are very excited about the quality, look, durability, over all good value of this tile.

US Tile makes quite a few styles of clay tiles, but most of them (as most other clay tile manufacturers don't meet as well) do not meet their rigorous quality requirements for severe cold climate regions such as up here in Canada. All their tile is good quality, but an exceptional quality is required for areas with freeze thaw severe winter weather conditions. But the Pro Shake Plus is made from clay derived from a special clay pit in Australia where the Grade One clay creates an extreme weather clay tile that is openly recommended to be used in this region.

So Pro Shake Plus is designed and built for severe weather conditions. It is lightweight (about 5.90 lbs per square foot), only about 60% of the weight of concrete roof tiles. It comes in a few natural looking colours such as Madera, Weathered Shake, Charcoal Gray, as well as designer colours such as Kapalua Green, and Terra Cotta Red. We stock the Madera as the best wood replacement colour, but we also may stock the Charcoal Gray as a "slate" look application.

The Pro Shake Plus costs only about $3.25 per square foot which is actually the same price today as Heavy Resawn Wood Shakes. The difference is the wood shakes can burn, will likely not be insurable (now or soon), and will probably require re-roofing again within 20 years. The Pro Shake Clay shakes are class A fire rated, will not burn, should reduce the insurance costs and risks, and won't fade or discolour like real wood.

A complete cedar re-roof in this region will cost roughly $9 to $12 per square foot including the clay tiles as well as the plywood, underlayments, flashings, vents, disposal, labour, etc. This is a great investment for maximum curb appeal, maintaining or improving the value of your home, and long term durability.

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