Metal Roofing Installation on a Porch Addition

The following is a guest post from our friend Philip or Flop. Follow him on Instagram!

Metal roofing doesn’t sound like a DIY to most, but I took on this challenge a few years ago to roof our daughter's playhouse and thought the same material would look awesome on our new addition. This article covers the advantages of metal roofing, how I selected the type, and my thoughts on the installation!

My whole experience with metal roofing started three years ago when I started to make the playhouse of my daughters’ dreams. We have a shed roof detail on the front of our house that I wanted to match for the playhouse but had no idea who the supplier was. Through much research, I found that the material was from McElroy Metal in the color Mansard Brown.

Through research on their website of the installation procedures, I thought to myself, “this really is a project that I think I could take on”. By the end of 2018 install was done and was dreaming about the large porch addition that we would start in a few years. From that time, I knew I wanted a matching metal roof on the porch!

Why Metal Roofing?

Asphalt shingles come in a few different colors, but to me, they all pretty much look the same. I’ve always been drawn to the unique looks of metal roofing and between the different styles and color combinations, there are literally hundreds of different looks that one can achieve! Without a doubt, metal roofing will cost more upfront but there are so many advantages over asphalt shingles that the investment is usually a smart one. 

If installed correctly, metal roofing can easily last 2-3 times longer than traditional roofing materials. When asphalt shingles have to be replaced in 15-20 years they go straight to the landfill, whereas metal roofs are 100% recyclable when they meet the end of their life (and they often contain some recycled metal content as well).

High-quality metal roofing is more wind resistant, hail resistant, and fire resistant than traditional roofing and most would be surprised that it also provides energy savings as well (especially in climates where A/C costs are significantly more than heating costs).

Metals by nature reflect and re-emit more of the sun's energy than asphalt. Not only does asphalt absorb more energy but shingles have twice the areal mass of metal so more of the absorbed heat is held in the roof and will be transferred to the roof deck! 

How to Select Metal Roofing 

When it comes to metal roofing there are a lot of different types of products and many different color options! The best way to find a product that you think might look good with the architecture of your home or structure is to look at pictures.

Finding random images on google is a start but it’s sometimes hard to identify which products are actually used in those inspiration pictures. McElroy metal has a great online resource that has over 300 metal roof projects with pictures and each one tells exactly which products were used.

Once you have an idea about the style you might be interested in you can also use one of their visualizer tools to see that style on a residential structure and then change the color! As a final step you can also pay a small fee and a designer will load a picture of your actual structure into the visualizer tool where you can change the roof type and color.

I did this for our project and it really confirmed that the Mansard Brown Medalion-lok standing seam roofing was going to look awesome as our porch roofing material. (pictured below is another option we were considering using the visualizer)

Installation on the Porch 

Metal roofing installation is definitely not for beginner DIYers. And the more complex the roof gets, the more challenging the (and time-consuming) installation becomes. It is also important to set up a properly designed fall protection system for anyone that is working on the roof. I felt comfortable taking on the installation on our screened porch because I had been through a more simple install on our playhouse.

I used the Medallion-Lok installation manual published by McElroy Metal to understand the exact specifications on how their roofing components go together but I also watched hours of YouTube videos for more general metal roofing tips and to convince myself that I could do it! I worked with my Dad on both of my metal roofing projects and I definitely recommend having at least one helper.

Since every roof (and many products) will have different instructions for installation, I am not going to write out the exact steps we took for this project in this blog article, however, if you want to get a feel for the overall process, follow me on Instagram and find my story highlight “Porch Roof” to see the videos I saved!

If you have hesitations about installing a roof yourself, you are definitely not alone. Luckily there are lots of roofing contractors out there that specialize in metal. You can use this locator tool, and type in your zip code to find one closest to you!