Metal Roof Replacement in Alachua, FL

What you are looking at

The first drone frame looks down the length of the main roof on a sunny afternoon in early June. Two brick chimneys stand up through the new panels, and a small front gable sits off the near side with its ribs running the other way. The planes facing the sun look almost white and the ones turned away look blue-gray, but it is the same light gray metal everywhere; only the angle of the light changes.

Seen straight from above, the house is laid out as several connected sections: a main block with the small front gable and both chimneys, a middle section, and a long wing off to one side. Every section got the same metal, so the whole footprint now reads as one roof.

The panels are ribbed metal held down by rows of screws through the flat part of each panel, which show up as small dots in the closer frames. Along the peak, a formed metal ridge cap covers the joint where the two sides meet. It is screwed down along both edges, and the pieces lap where one ends and the next begins.

The chimney close-up shows a cricket on its uphill side. A cricket is a small peaked piece of metal that splits the water coming down the roof so it runs around the chimney instead of collecting against the brick. Where a lower section tucks under a higher one, long runs of metal flashing cover the joint, and each vent pipe coming through the panels has a boot sealed around its base.

Photos Brehm took during the tear-off show what sits under the metal. The old gray shingles came off down to the deck, new plywood sheets were set in among the older sheets of decking along the roof edge, and then the whole deck was covered in red underlayment before any metal went on.

The last frame looks along the long side of the house, with its white walls, black shutters and a big rounded shrub at the corner, on a grassy lot shaded by mature trees. Light colored metal generally reflects more sun than dark gray shingles, which is one reason metal is a common choice for Florida homes.