Standing seam is not the upgrade around here. It is the default, which means most of what fails is a fastener, a closure or a seam rather than a covering. on a metal roof almost never through the panel itself. It comes in where the covering is fastened, lapped, capped, or run into something else.
- 1 The ridge cap. On metal it is a separate piece with closures under it. Blown snow finds the joint that was never closed.
- 2 The seams. A standing-seam roof lives at its seams and clips, not at its surface. The panel outlasts what holds it.
- 3 The valley. One channel taking what two slopes shed, and on the north side holding snow long after the field is clear.
- 4 Where the ell meets the wall. A lower wing dying into the main house. Two roofs, one wall, and nobody sure whose seam it is.
- 5 The fasteners. Exposed screws through the panel, each with a rubber washer. The washers age; the screws work loose.
- 6 The eave. Drip edge, gutter, and the question every metal roof asks: where does a slab of snow go when it lets go?
The six
Metal country, and what it costs
A freeze cycle that runs all winter and finds every joint that was sealed rather than built. A housing stock where the covering is as likely to be metal as shingle, and where metal fails through its fasteners and closures long before its panels. And properties rather than lots — a house, a barn, a garage, four roofs of four different ages. The covering outlasts what holds it down, and that is the whole story here.