Metal Roofing around Midway
Metal roofs that shed snow and last decades.
Metal Roofing for Midway homes and buildings
Standing seam and exposed-fastener panels over the right underlayment, with movement allowed for.
West-facing slopes take the worst of it in Midway. Afternoon sun at this elevation works on the mat all summer, then hail comes out of the same quarter in the shoulder seasons, so one plane of a roof routinely ages years ahead of the others.
Metal moves with temperature. A metal roof fails where somebody pinned it down.
What matters on metal roofing
Movement is the design problem
Metal expands and contracts with temperature across the whole length of a panel. A metal roof that was pinned down rather than allowed to move will oil-can, work its fasteners loose, or tear at a fixing point. The clip and fastener strategy is the engineering.
Where metal earns its keep
At elevation, where snow sits for months, a metal roof sheds load instead of carrying it. That single property is why so much of the high country is metal.
How the system goes together
What underlayment actually does
Shingles shed water. Underlayment is what handles the water that gets past them, and something always gets past them. Synthetic underlayment has largely replaced felt because it does not wrinkle when it gets damp, does not tear when the wind catches it during installation, and keeps its footing when a crew is working a steep slope.
Felt still shows up
On small repairs and on matching an existing older assembly it is fine. On a full replacement up here there is no reason to go back to it.
Standing seam versus exposed fastener
Standing seam hides its fasteners under the raised seam, so nothing that holds the panel down is exposed to weather. Corrugated and other exposed-fastener panels screw through the face with a rubber washer at every screw, which costs less up front and means those washers are a maintenance item down the road. Both belong on roofs up here. They just have different lives.
Panel movement decides the detail
Whichever system, the panel has to be free to expand and contract or it will work its own fastener holes open.
What we check
- Panel profile and gauge against the snow load
- Clip spacing and room left for movement
- Underlayment rated for the heat under metal
- Trim at the eaves, rakes and walls
What the job looks like
Get on the roof
We walk it rather than look from the drive, check the decking underfoot, the flashings and the ventilation, and photograph what we find before any number is discussed.
Show you what we saw
The photographs come back to you with a plain read of what the roof needs and, just as often, what it does not need yet.
Crew on site
The crews we hire work under Hancock’s direction, staged so landscaping and the drive are protected, working the detail in the order it is supposed to go on rather than the order that is quickest.
Leave it clean
Site cleared at the end of every day, a magnet run over the whole yard for nails at the finish, and the roof walked with you before we go.
Wet leaves against a wall line
Where a lower roof runs into a two-story wall, leaves and needles collect in that inside corner and stay. The pile holds water directly against the bottom of the siding and the top of the step flashing, which is the one place on a roof where a little standing moisture does the most damage.
Clear the corner, check the kickout
A kickout flashing at the bottom of that run throws the water into the gutter instead of behind the siding. Plenty of houses up here were built without one.
Ice dams start at the eave
The mechanism is simple and it ruins ceilings. Heat escaping the living space warms the deck, snow above melts, the water runs down to the cold overhang past the heated wall line and freezes there. The ridge of ice that builds up backs meltwater under the shingles.
The fix is not a heat cable
Cables buy a season. Sealing the attic bypasses, getting insulation depth right at the top plate, balancing intake and exhaust, and running ice-and-water shield well past the interior wall line is what actually stops it.
Where roofs go wrong
The shortcut we see most
Panels fastened tight at both ends with no allowance for movement. The roof oil-cans in summer, works its fasteners loose over a few seasons, and tears at a fixing point.
What good looks like instead
Clips and fasteners that let the panel move with temperature, and terminations detailed for the expansion the metal will actually see.
Signs worth a look
- Fasteners backing out or their washers cracked
- Panels oil-canning visibly along a run
- Seams opening at a termination
- Rust starting at a cut edge or penetration
What to expect
Lifespan against cost
Metal costs more up front and lasts considerably longer. Whether that is the right trade depends on how long you intend to be in the building, and we will talk through that honestly rather than push the bigger job.
Snow behaviour
Metal sheds snow, which is an advantage at elevation and a hazard over a walkway or a door. Snow retention gets designed in where the building needs it rather than added after somebody gets hit.
Noise and insulation
Over a solid deck with underlayment, a metal roof is not appreciably louder than asphalt. The drumming people remember is metal over open purlins on an outbuilding.
Getting to Midway
Midway is inside the ground we cover around Salt Lake City. When a storm opens a roof up, water still coming in is the one thing we treat as urgent.
That proximity is most of what matters when weather moves through. Midway sits in Wasatch County, and we are on roofs across it regularly enough to know how the housing there was built.
Questions we get asked
Not the question you had? Call the shop and ask a person. We would rather talk it through than have you guess from a website.
(801) 382-8898Do you actually work in Midway?
Regularly. Midway is ordinary working territory for us, not an outlying job we take when it is quiet.
How fast can you get to Midway after a storm?
We stop the water first. Temporary work is genuinely temporary and we say so, but it buys the time to do the actual repair right.
What happens if you find bad decking?
We show you. The decking is only visible during a tear-off, so that is when soft sheathing gets found and replaced. We photograph it rather than just add it to a list.
Do you work through the winter?
Yes, with judgment. Shingles need to seal, and in genuine cold that takes longer or needs hand sealing. Emergency work happens whenever it has to. Full replacements get scheduled around the weather rather than forced into it.
What makes a Utah roof different?
Snow load, ice at the eaves, canyon wind and high-altitude sun, all on the same roof. A crew that learned roofing somewhere mild has to learn it again up here.
Where Midway sits on our map
Crews reach Midway on the normal week, not as a special run.