Are you designing a new home or designing a new roof structure for your home? If so, you might be considering a flat roof for that home. Flat roofs, once only used on commercial buildings, are now becoming more popular for modern homes. Here are some pros and cons to ponder as you decide whether a flat roof is a good option for you.
Pro: Flat roofs use less material.
A flat roof takes a lot less material to cover than a peaked roof on the same size home. As such, choosing a flat roof design can help keep your material costs down. It's also a wise move for sustainability reasons. Less material used means less material in the landfill one day when its useful life comes to an end.
Con: Flat roofs can hold a lot of snow.
If you get heavy snow in your area, a flat roof may not be the wisest choice. Snow will not slide off of it, so the snow load can get pretty heavy. You'll probably be fine most of the time, but if a big blizzard brings multiple feet of snow, your roof may suffer.
Pro: You can use the roof as an outdoor living space.
It does not take much to make a flat roof into an outdoor living space. You could build a terrace or patio up there. You could also build a rooftop garden. If you have a small yard and want to be able to enjoy the outdoors, putting a flat roof on your home could be a way to do so.
Con: You have to keep up with maintenance.
A flat roof is more likely to leak than a sloped one since water can pool in any low spots. So, you will need to be more vigilant about having the roof looked over and repaired routinely.
Pro: Flat roofs are energy efficient.
With a flat roof design, you don't have a big attic space where air can get trapped and stagnant. In warmer areas, especially, this design leads to more even indoor temperatures and lower air conditioning costs.
If you like the way a flat roof looks on your home, talk to a residential roofing company. They can discuss these pros and cons with you in more depth and help you determine which factors are most relevant to your situation. A flat roof can be a real benefit, and there are ways to reduce the drawbacks.
One day when we were all sitting in our living room, I thought I felt a drop of water fall onto my arm. At first, I figured it was my imagination, but when the second one fell, I knew we had an issue. Although it wasn't raining that day, it had rained the day before, so I started looking for the source of the problem. After looking in my attic, I could tell what the problem was, and I knew I had to fix it. I started looking for ways to stop the water immediately, but it just wasn't working for me. Fortunately, roofers came out, fixed the problem, and showed me what I needed to do to clean up the mess. Read more on this blog.