Advantages and disadvantages of soft tiles for a country house. Advantages and disadvantages of bituminous shingles Flexible tiles pros and cons

Soft roofing and metal tiles are roofing materials that are popular today and have qualities such as long service life, reliability and aesthetic appearance. When you need to choose one of the presented options, complexity arises and the developer gets lost.

To know exactly which material is best suited for a particular building, it is necessary to consider separately the positive and negative sides everyone.

Pros and cons of metal tiles

Metal tiles – roofing material which is obtained from metal. Its surface is coated with zinc and colored polymer. In appearance, metal tiles resemble natural tiles. The main advantage of metal tiles is that they can be used for arranging any structure, even if it has too complex angles. The only condition is the presence of a slope angle (14 degrees). This will prevent precipitation from accumulating.

The photo shows a metal roof:

The advantages of metal tiles include:

1. Long service life of 50 years.
2. The material can be used for any climatic conditions. He is not afraid of temperature changes from -50 to +70 degrees.
3. Installation of metal tiles can take place at any time of the year, as they are not afraid of temperature fluctuations.
4. The weight of 1 m2 is 6 kg, thanks to which the material can be installed on the sheathing and for houses with a light foundation. In addition, the lightness of the sheets makes the installation process easier.
5. A wide range of. In stores, metal tiles are presented in various colors and shapes.
6. Metal tiles are highly resistant to fire.
7. The roof made from this material is durable, as it has a minimum number of seams.
8. Roofing material is supplemented necessary components for installing not only the roof, but also drains, ebbs and other structural parts.
9. Installation speed. Two workers can cover 2 m2 using special screws in one shift.
10. Metal tiles do not need to be dismantled before installation flat roof. Installation of new sheets can occur directly on roofing felt or roofing felt, which will become additional layer thermal insulation.

What's in the video metal tiles are better or soft roof:

As for the disadvantages, they include:

1. If the roof has a complex shape, then when cutting the canvases you need to adjust the pattern. This leads to waste of material.
2. Low level of sound insulation. During heavy rain or wind, all sounds will be heard in the house. This problem can be solved by laying a soundproofing substrate.
3. The metal tile has a relief so that snow does not roll off it. To avoid this, it is important to observe the angle of the roof during installation.
4. Low resistance to mechanical influences. When installing sheets, scratches may occur on them, and this will lead to corrosion. Consequently, the service life of the material will be much shorter.

What types of Monterrey metal tile coverings exist and how to make them right choice. information will help you understand

Pros and cons of soft roofing

Soft roofing or bitumen shingles are another popular roofing material that has the following advantages:

1. Long service life, which can reach up to 50 years.
2. Low percentage of waste during installation. When installing the material on roofs with complex shapes, waste consumption will be about 5%.
3. Large range of colors and shapes, so choose perfect option it won't be difficult.
4. High level of sound insulation. You don’t have to worry that when it rains, all sounds will be heard in the house.
5. Snow holders can be installed on a roof made of soft tiles, since the snow does not fall off like an avalanche.

On the video - which roof is better, soft or metal tiles:

The disadvantages of soft tiles include:

1. Expensive installation. If you do all the work yourself, you can save money.
2. Price. And although the price of the material itself is the same as metal tiles, you still need to buy a number of additional elements, which will result in a tidy sum. Installation soft roof can only happen on flat surface. This will require additional costs for OSB-3 boards
3. Weight. Soft tiles are quite heavy, 1 m2 weighs 15 kg.

Comparison

To understand which material is better, you need to compare all their quality characteristics in order to then make a choice.

Appearance

If we consider best material from an aesthetic point of view, both materials benefit. Soft tiles and metal tiles are available in a wide range of colors and shapes.

Although metal tiles can be presented in several textures: glossy, matte, embossed. But the soft roof has a layer of stone chips on top, which increases the strength characteristics of the material and gives the surface roughness.

Product weight

The weight of metal tiles ranges from 3 to 6 kg per 1 m2, and the thickness is 0.45-0.55 m. Since cold-rolled steel was used for the manufacture of the material, this thickness is excellent for a durable coating.

Flexible tiles has a weight of 7 to 15 kg per 1 m2, and a thickness of up to 5 mm. At the same time, both materials do not create a special load and can be used for lightweight roofing construction.

Strength and hardness

Here the leading position is occupied by metal tiles. This material is light and durable, and the installation process can be carried out on a lattice frame without danger. Soft material will not be able to hold its shape, so it must be laid only on a solid sheathing, unlike other brands.

To do this, you will have to use plywood or OSB boards, and this increases costs.

Easy to install

The process of laying metal tile sheets is not that complicated, even if they are long. But if you use them to arrange a roof of complex shape, then it will be difficult to do this. 1/3 of the material will go into leftovers that cannot be used later. In addition, you will need to purchase auxiliary elements, which again will affect costs.

But soft tiles are perfect for roofing different shapes, even the most difficult. Although its installation can only be performed at temperatures above zero. But metal tiles can be laid in any weather conditions.

Lifetime

The manufacturer of metal tiles guarantees that they will last you 5-120 years, although in practice it reaches up to 5 years. The period depends on the quality of the polymer used to cover the sheets and on climate conditions.

But a flexible roof can last 30-50 years, since the material with which the sheets are covered does not corrode. Despite this, soft roofing does not tolerate cold well, and this limits its use.

Price

If you buy metal tiles, then 1 m2 will cost you 200-480 rubles. If you use elite class material, its cost will be 1200 m2. Price flexible material– 230-570 rubles, elite class – 2000 rubles.

Bituminous shingles, with their characteristics, refutes the hackneyed belief that low-quality roof coverings mean cheap roofing. Soft tiles are a pleasant exception to the rule. With its appearance on the market, it is possible to purchase high-quality roofing material at a very reasonable price. Wherein exterior design roofs can be made exclusive, resembling either a wooden shingle roof, a textured slate covering, or a presentable ceramic tile.

A little about the material

This is a multi-layer fiberglass canvas coated on both sides with a special modified bitumen mixture and fine-grained stone topping on one side.

Impregnation of the fiber with bitumen leads to the formation of a homogeneous structure, the second side (bottom) of which is treated with a primer containing glue. With the same sticky side, bitumen shingles are fixed on the roof, while the front surface with crumbs has protective properties, protecting the base from mechanical damage. In addition, the multi-colored textured surface of the crumbs looks attractive and ensures long-term use of the roof.

Comprehensive objective assessment of shingles

The weight of a square meter unit ranges from 8 to 13 kg. Like any roofing material, bitumen shingles also have pros and cons. Although positive points there is, however, more to it.

Advantages of flexible tiles:

• due to its plasticity, it does not experience tensile stresses when the house shrinks;
• characterized by a low degree of combustion;
• has a high noise absorption coefficient due to the fine fraction of stone chips;
• used in almost all regions, because operating temperature indicators are -50- +100°C;
• possibility of covering any pitched roof;
• allows you to finish complex-shaped structures on the roof, to produce coatings in hard-to-reach places, on arched ceilings;
• easy to handle during installation: hence the minimum percentage of waste;
• allows you to vary the color and configuration of the cut sheets;
• thanks to stone chips, flexible bitumen shingles are wear-resistant;
• the cost-effectiveness of the coating lies in the absence of the need to reinforce the rafters due to the low weight of the sheets;
• high performance: if the installation and operation technology is followed, the roof will last for many decades;
• the ability to cover any pitched roof (even without dismantling the old covering), if the angle of inclination is at least 12°;
• resistance to putrefactive and corrosive processes, strong winds and sudden temperature changes;
• Installation of bitumen shingles is easy; you can handle it yourself without special skills.

What about the shortcomings?

They are there, but not that many. The main one is that it is impossible to cover flat (with an angle of less than 12°) roofs. You can’t save money on the sheathing either: a flexible elastic coating requires continuous flooring. Well, the price: it is much higher than some quite decent varieties of the same metal tiles, but it also benefits in performance properties, in particular, in strength it is the same as its metal counterpart.

Features of installation technology

Bituminous shingles are considered a universal material: the technology for laying sheets is the same when applying them to country house, manufacturing facility or cottage and is not much different from installing a hard surface. However, a violation of the sequence of formation of the roofing “pie” underneath leads to a change in the characteristics of the roof and premature repairs.

Attention! The roofing system consists of sheathing, rafter frame, layer, insulation and waterproof membrane. Wherein rafter legs are installed in increments provided for and calculated according to the technology for performing the work and influencing the choice of the thickness of the board for the sheathing.

A properly made sheathing serves as the basis for holding the “pie”, so it must be dry (with a humidity of about 20%), stable, strong and effective. natural ventilation. All wooden elements(plywood, oriented strand board, softwood edged boards) are treated with anti-rot agents.

Installation of large-sheet fragments is best done with “running” seams. Ventilation of the space occurs through the gaps between the boards, amounting to 1-5 mm, as well as through exhaust openings: one under the ridge, and the second below, at the eaves overhang. The air flow removes the formed condensate from the soft roof, thermal insulation and the sheathing itself.

The roofing structure is laid on rafter system in strict sequence: vapor barrier, insulation, moisture protection, lattice frame (sheathing), soft bitumen shingles.

For your information! The tile material has unique property: Over time, after installation, it begins to spontaneously adhere to the adjacent roofing element. In the summer hot weather the bitumen base melts, after which strong adhesion between the sheets occurs. Installation during cold periods involves heating the tiles with a hairdryer.

We build a roof from soft tiles: step by step

• We are preparing the work front. We clean the old roof (in case of reconstruction) or bring the base to the required parameters so that it is clean, dry, level, and most importantly, so that nails can be driven into it freely. Defects in height differences of about 2 mm are allowed.
• We stock up on the necessary equipment, tools and consumables for work at height. You will need a tool belt, a pencil and a tape measure, twine for marking the roof, scissors for cutting metal and a roofing knife, a hammer, a spatula, mastic and a gun for it, a hair dryer, fastening hardware (nails).
• The flooring is constructed from wood. Boards, at least 2 spans of rafters long, lie intersecting on them.
• All packages of tiles purchased according to the calculation should be mixed before installation so that the roof does not stand out with different shades of the same color, unless a different installation order is planned.
• A film is removed from the working side of the tile (the backside), which performs protective functions during storage and transportation of material.
• The covering must be laid from the bottom edge of the slope. Rectangular cornice sheets begin to be fixed at the edges of the overhang with galvanized hardware, driving them into the base.
• Going up, already figured tiles are used. Its installation should be such that the upper mounted element covers with its edge the heads of the nails driven in next to it below. Secure fixation tiles are secured with 4-5 nails. The last element should not reach about 30 mm to the edge of the rectangular sheet.

• After completely covering the slope in the lower part, at the edge of the cornice, the remaining tiles are cut off with a margin so that the bent part is glued 10 mm with bitumen glue.
• Then natural processes come into play: heating the tiles under the sun provokes the appearance of a softened bitumen layer. The contact between both the sheets themselves and the coating with the sheathing is strengthened.
• Particular attention is paid to places at the joints of orthogonally located walls. In places adjacent to the vertical bearing surface, it is nailed metal corner. It serves as a sealed part on which sheets of tiles are mounted in the lower part, and glued in the upper part bitumen mastic with a mandatory overlap of about 0.7 m on the wall, roll covering.
• The overhang of the cornice is given additional strength by metal strips, which are fastened with roofing nails along the edge of the base. Their arrangement is “checkerboard” - with a pitch of 150 mm. Do not forget about the obligatory overlap of the planks: it must be at least 30 mm.
• Facilitation of water flow and snow removal with a chimney width of more than 0.5 m and a solid base can be provided by a pyramid-shaped groove adjacent to the chimney. It is necessary as structural element, because in the place where the roof and pipe meet, a hole (gap) is formed - a channel for moisture to penetrate into the under-roof space. The peculiar shape of the groove ensures that sediment rolls down along the slopes of the pyramid without lingering on the roof and crushing the pipe.
• A batten is also nailed to the corner between the smoker and the roofing surface. The flexible tile sheet is inserted behind it with a slight overlap onto the pipe. From above, starting from there, at a height of 0.3 m from the base surface, the roofing of the valley is installed. The lower part of the smoke exhaust equipped in this way is protected by a metal apron (armor), consisting of sheets, coated with paint, tightly laid in a circle, and sheet metal.

Attention! When performing each installation operation, using a level, the geometric dimensions of the roof are periodically checked: length, width, slope diagonals.

• To remove communication pipes, pass-through accessories are installed from materials that are in harmony with the tiles. They fit functionally and aesthetically into the tiled ensemble and are easily secured with roofing nails.
• The design of the ridge is carried out with a special type of perforated flexible ridge sheet, which allows it to be divided into three components and tightly encloses the ridge with overlaps of 5-6 cm, attached to it with the same nails.

Decorative coating is not difficult to do yourself, as you can see by perusing thematic forums and asking the request: bituminous shingles - reviews. Its correct installation guarantees protection of the house from moisture penetration and makes it possible to make the roof textured and diverse. You just need to adhere to certain rules and the sequence of installation stages, which you can additionally watch in the video.

When choosing a roofing material the topic of technical parameters comes to the fore, in which the material chosen by the customer will have to work. The optimal choice today is soft tiles, which have a number of advantages that make this choice justified.

Easy installation this modern material, and long service life There are only a few arguments in its favor. Considering the pros and cons of this material, you can make a choice in its favor, but we must not forget about the scope of application.

The disadvantages of soft tiles are few; one of the main ones limiting their use is slope angle of the roof area of ​​a building under construction. If its value is less than twelve degrees, use is not recommended. Other characteristics, such as expected loads from wind and snow cover, are much more flexible for use, and the building under construction will only benefit from such a light and durable, beautiful, weather-resistant material. Below we will consider other disadvantages of soft tiles that do not affect the possibility of use.

Kinds

The most eloquent thing about the advantages of soft tiles is the fact that its use as a roofing material has continued for more than one and a half hundred years. And also the fact that in the middle of the last century, about half of all roofs in the United States were covered with it.

Throughout the history of the use of this material, production technology has changed in better side, new substances appeared for the manufacture of the base and covering layer. This could not but affect the quality that is now not inferior to metal coating options that are more durable by nature and traditional, based on ceramic tiles.

The production of soft roofing material involves the use of a base material treated with bitumen and coating it on both sides with various substances, in accordance with its purpose.

The soft composition consists of fiberglass fabric treated with oxygen-enriched bitumen. The resulting symbiosis, ensuring the strength of the connection between the layers of bitumen, provides high level withstand loads while maintaining flexibility.

Additional protection is provided by the coating of the front part. For this purpose, basalt granulate, finely dispersed mineral crumbs or shale topping are used. Inner surface processed with an adhesive composition. Before using the material, the protective film is removed, the product is attached to the solid sheathing with nails, and under the influence of ultraviolet radiation, the tiles are glued to the underlying layer and to each other.

Flexible roofing is divided not only by type, but also by cutting method. There are six main types; these methods do not affect the operational parameters, they have only a decorative purpose. A special type of tile is used for the ridge and cornice parts.

Geometric parameters are standardized, the dimensions of soft tiles are 1000x317 mm.

If there are expected increased loads on the roof, it is worth paying attention to a covering option such as two-layer soft tiles. The thickness of soft tiles of this type exceeds this parameter of the traditional version. It costs more, but has several advantages, including the use of two sheets instead of one of the usual material. It is believed that this type is more convenient when working. Due to its texture, it allows you to hide small irregularities roofing devices.

When choosing roofing material for own home, every developer tries to find a coating that meets three main criteria. The first is reliability. The second is beauty. And the third is the optimal price-quality ratio. An example of such a material is bituminous or flexible tiles. Let's talk about it in more detail, and also look at the pros and cons of flexible tiles.

Features of the material

Roofing made of bituminous tiles

First, let's look at the question of what flexible tiles are:

• Firstly, it is a multilayer composite material based on fiberglass. It is this that influences the strength characteristics of the product.
• Secondly, in order for roof tiles to be used as protection, they must be waterproof. Therefore, it consists of two layers made from special mixtures based on bitumen - hence its second name “bitumen”.
• Thirdly, basalt topping gives the tiles a presentable appearance. The color and shade of the material depends on it. In addition, the sprinkle copes well with sun rays and mechanical loads.
• Fourthly, the underside of the material is treated with a special adhesive composition, so the tiles are classified as self-adhesive coatings. This simplifies the installation process, while simultaneously increasing the convenience of the work. By the way, the adhesive layer is covered with a special protective film, which is removed before carrying out work.

The flexible tile itself is shaped like shingles of different configurations. It is usually secured with nails, and the self-adhesive layer provides a tight connection with the plane on which the material is fixed. If we talk about bitumen, which is used in the production of such tiles, then its brand, and, accordingly, its quality characteristics will depend on the brand roofing covering. That is, these two indicators directly depend on each other. The higher the grade of bitumen, the better the quality of the tiles, and the longer their service life.

For example, the world-famous brand “Shinglas”. One of its models - “Classic” - contains bitumen enriched with oxygen. Its service life is guaranteed to be 20 years. Or the more advanced “Jazz” model, which uses a brand of modified bitumen. Its service life is 25 years under the manufacturer's warranty. In addition, this model can be mounted even with low temperatures, since such flexible tiles have increased elasticity and frost resistance.

Advantages of roofing material

The advantages of flexible tiles are obvious - it is not for nothing that they are a very popular roofing covering on the building materials market:

1. This is one of the most prestigious and beautiful roofing materials. Its price is slightly higher than that of metal tiles, but much lower than its natural counterpart.
2. In terms of installation efficiency, it has virtually no equal. Here, the length of the element is taken into account, equal to one meter. Cut by required size the shingles can be used elsewhere on the roof. That is, waste is minimized.
3. If you choose bitumen shingles, you will end up with a virtually silent roof. It’s not even worth comparing it with metal tiles in this regard.
4. On hot days, asphalt shingles heat up less than metal shingles. In addition, it is absolutely not susceptible to corrosion and does not lose its original color under the sun.
5. This is a 100% sealed design. The shingles are tightly connected to each other using an adhesive on back side material. They do not bend due to wind load. This means that moisture getting under them is nonsense.
6. Transportation of this material is quite simple. It can be transported by any type of transport, for example, by car, but only with the top open. And the weight of the package is not so great, so one person can easily lift it.
7. And the last thing is simple and easy installation.

Flaws

There are no obvious disadvantages to bitumen shingles. Basically, all the shortcomings are associated either with incorrect installation or with the quality of the material itself. To avoid the second point, buy the product from trusted manufacturers whose brand is well-known.

Questions and answers

Flexible tiles - some installation features

How waterproof is it? Here it is necessary to take into account that tiles are not the only material that covers the roof of a building. This multi-layer construction, which includes:

• The first layer is boards, moisture resistant plywood or OSB boards.
• The second layer is waterproofing roll material, laid in overlapping strips.
• The third layer is the flexible tile itself.

The multi-layer structure of the roof covering is already a guarantee. And there is no need to talk about the insulating qualities of the material. After all, no one will produce a product through which water passes and install it as the main protection on the roof. In addition, the installed tiles are a monolithic covering.

Can bituminous shingles be considered a type of roofing felt? No you can not. The fact is that the production of roofing felt is based on cardboard, which can rot quickly. And bitumen in the manufacture of roofing felt is of reduced quality.

Can strong wind tear off such a roof covering? Can not. Numerous tests and tests have shown that the shingles are firmly attached to the substrate roofing structure. Two types of fasteners are used here - glue and nails. So be confident in your roof.

Conclusion on the topic

As you can see, this roofing material has pros and cons, but there are more of the former. Of course, it is necessary to pay attention to the installation process, because the quality of the result depends on it. In any case, that's what experts say. A small deviation from the installation technology can lead to irreparable consequences, the main of which is roof leakage. And this is an unpleasant factor that will require new financial and labor costs.