Slate Roofing
Cost: $$$
Lifespan: 75years+
Weight: 1000-4000lbs per 100 sq. feet
Wind Resistance: 100mph+
Composition: Natural Rock
Advantages: Natural Beauty, Long Lifecycle, Durable, Environmentally Friendly
Disadvantages: High Initial Cost, Weight can prevent installation on certain structures.
Slate is a rock, it is fine grained crystalline rock metamorphosed from bedded deposits of clay and silt. There are three kinds of slate: mica, clay and igneous. Mica is the only kind used for slate roofing. Slate has been used as a roofing material in Europe for hundreds of years with examples dating all the way back to the 8th Century. From the 17th to the 19th Century most slate in America was imported from North Wales. The first United States commercial slate quarry opened in 1785 in Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania, and the slate business in the United States was very limited and localized until the latter 19th Century. The industry grew because of population, quarrying technology, rail system and immigration of Welsh slate workers. After the Civil War the United States became a slate exporter and slate reached its peak in the U. S from 1897 to 1914. From that time period on slate was replaced by cheaper alternatives for roofing options but slate is still produced and used today, there are houses that where roofed with slate in 1914 that still have the same slate roof on it today. Slate roofing materials come in a wide range of colors including black, gray, blue-black, purple, green, sea green and red. Slate roofing can be unfading in color or fading which means it changes with the weather. In the United States slate used for slate roofs comes from five main slate producing regions - Monson, Maine, Vermont, New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania and Buckingham, Virginia. Outside the U.S slate is produced in Canada, Europe, China and South America. The quality can range from poor to excellent.
