Hacker News Reader

Comment by EligibleDecoy | Hacker News Reader

It’s called “money.” That is the reason. Slate roofs are common in the UK, and using synthetic slate is $7-12/sqft, whereas bitumen/asphalt shingles which are common in the USA cost $0.50-$1.00/sqft. Average home in the USA is 2,200 sq ft with a roof size of 1,700 sq ft. So $1,700 vs $11,900 is quite a difference (and that was being most generous, excluding installation costs, etc) So basically, average person who owns a house has a big house, and big roofs are already expensive. Regardless of wanting to get a high quality roof that would last more than 30 years, that requires capital - more than the average owner really has access too. Sources: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/reviews/roofing/slate-ro... https://www.architecturaldigest.com/reviews/roofing/shingle-... https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/average-square-footage-... https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/roofing-stats/

View on HN

Materials may cost that, but you are not getting a roof replaced for $1,700. Maybe $17,000 and even then it’s pushing it on the coasts especially. Labor and other overhead costs have really gone up and contractors don’t want to deal with small jobs. Sad really.

I’ve never seen slate roofs in California, so not sure if these are to code here. We looked at metal and other materials, but the problem is the weight is different, so now you are engaging an engineer to evaluate structure, submitting plans, dealing with code updates. Or just new asphalt shingles every 15-20 years. The payoff isn’t there and folks don’t tend to keep houses for generations, unlike in the UK.

There is very little acceptable roofing slate available in the USA. PA has a few quarries that provide it, but according to roofers (in PA) that I talked to, it is still nowhere close in quality to, say, Welsh slate. Too many voids which when coupled with much more severe freeze/thaw cycling in much of the USA leads to early failures.

I think you may be overestimating the extent to which UK houses are held for "generations.

And even if you import Welsh slate, you may have to import workers, too.

Because if you're trying to use building materials that the local contractors are not familiar with, you're going to have a bad time.

Slate isn't the only material with decent longevity. Ceramic and concrete tile should both last 100+ years.

In my comment I said we looked into metal and other materials, but all increase weight, requiring engineering evaluation of the house and likely reinforcing the structure. Ceramic and concrete tiles are common here, but have the same problem. Don’t know about slate, but for the tiles you mention underlayment still needs to be replaced every 20-30 years at least requiring these to be removed and reapplied. Since labor is the major cost driver, it’s basically like paying for a new roof.

Also the cheap materials roof weighs less, and so the whole building under the roof can get away with being built cheaper.

In order to have a better roof, you probably must have a better entire house under it also.

This. Houses in the US are tinker-toys. They don't gave the structural strength to support a decent roof.

Where I live in Europe, roofs are usually ceramic shingles, which should easily last 50-100 years or more.

Of course, the down side of higher quality building standards is cost. Building a houses here costs a minimum of half-a-million, and quickly hits a million...

Plus you can repair individual shingles essentially indefinitely. There really is no predictable life.

A tar roof has an unavoidable time limit on the whole thing.

US roofs are commonly built to deal with snow loads of ~50 pounds per square foot. I don't think it's gonna be a big deal to support tile using the same techniques (it would just need to be accounted for).

50 lbs/ft2 is pretty much the upper limit in the continental US. Most of the Midwest is around 20lb. Maine and Alaska go significantly higher. Pretty much the entire South is 10lb or less.

I've lived various places in the US. With the exception of one older house, the roof trusses were a joke: so-called 2x4's (really much thinner than that), widely spaced, held together with a few nails and little or no cross-bracing. They might theoretically hold up to the weights listed, but I sure wouldn't stand under them during a test.

Where I am now, in Europe, the roof trusses are roughly 6"x10" laminated timber. That will hold a snow load.

I was talking about the techniques being up to the task. What you observed in houses not built to handle higher loads doesn't really inform that question.

Snow doesn't matter. Rafters designed for a cheap roof plus snow need to be stronger to support slate or tile plus snow. It's a static addition to whatever else.

>that requires capital - more than the average owner really has access too

It sounds odd to my ear to matter-of-factly state that the US is deprived due to being capital-poor.

I mean, I'm not disputing anything specific, but where do middle-class people have better access to consumer finance than the US?

If you'd asked me what single fact represents American homeowners to people interested in economics around the world, I would've guessed it's the access to 30-year fixed rate mortgages.

As far as I know this is a deliberate policy in the US, that has not been emulated by those envious of the American economy, but why I haven't a clue.

Insuring all those fixed rate mortgages is very expensive. The US has never actually had to do so, the closest being the 2008 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recapitalizations which cost $238B in loans that were finally paid off in 2022.

In Europe a lot of the government fiscal crises were a result of small countries having to backstop giant cross border banks that happened to be headquartered there, and there is little appetite for tighter fiscal union.

Who is on the losing side of interest rates going up while 30 year fixers are presumably paying something like 2%?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com