Metal roofing brings authenticity, strength to modern farmhouse in Florida
Belle Isle, Fla., is a sleepy suburb within the Orlando metropolitan area, with many of its residential streets lined with low-lying, ranch-style homes. But, even here, the national obsession with modern farmhouse-style design is beginning to take hold. In one neighborhood, the Casey family recently replaced an existing ranch with a new two-story farmhouse-style structure. Its steeply gabled roof showcases a prominent element on many of these traditional residences: a standing-seam metal roof.
Simplicity and strong lines are key design elements for farmhouse-style abodes, and this new home features both. Most of the house is clad with clapboards that wrap horizontally around the building, with board-and-batten designs drawing the eye up under the gables. The seams in the metal roofing panels also emphasize height. Plus, this versatile, long-lasting material offers a direct tie back to the farmhouse style’s humble origins. Metal also was the roofing material of choice for many homeowners a century or more ago, when their own homes were going up in small towns and rural locations across the United States.
Homeowner Royal Casey chose the metal roof for his house mostly for longevity but also for its strength, as the house is in the path of Florida’s frequent hurricanes. He and his wife selected the Silver metallic color because of its solar reflectivity qualities, plus the look of raw metal it provides. “More times than not, people use mill-finished galvalume because they want that shiny silver look. What they don’t realize is that galvalume weathers after time and becomes a dull gray. The Silver metallic PVDF paint finish will give me that look for 30-plus years.”
For the Casey home, installers with Orlando-based Architectural Sheet Metal went with products from Petersen’s PAC-CLAD line. The majority of the roof features 4,000 sq. ft. of the company’s Snap-Clad panels in 24-gauge steel. An additional 1,000 sq. ft of PAC-150 panels in .032-gauge aluminum covers a portion of the roof intended for a future solar panel installation. All the panels feature Petersen’s Silver finish, a tone that hearkens back to the days before metal roofs came with 30-year finish and weathertight warranties when metal roofing often was not much more than corrugated panels nailed to plywood.
Casey wanted PAC-CLAD products on his family’s home because, as he says, “PAC-CLAD provides the most bang for your buck. It’s a solid product that is priced competitively. It is not the cheapest but it’s also definitely not the most expensive. This was money well spent for my family. I look forward to the years to come where I don’t have to worry about replacement. My goal is that my kids will inherit this house and will also not have to worry about replacing the roof.”
The roof looks so good, it served as motivation for three of Casey’s friends to purchase metal roofs for their homes in the past year.
