Household Robots

Front Porch Tin Shingles: Four Solutions

Owners of vintage homes usually want to preserve their embossed tin shingle roofs. Unfortunately there are no readily available metal shingles that will match the size, texture and shadowing of the embossed tin shingles dating from 1870 to 1930. But there are resolutions that can meet budget constraints as well as appearance expectations.

For these owners of homes with embossed metal shingles, the porch is usually the most challenging. The porch area tends to be the most trampled. Understandably, painters have placed ladders on the shingles. Or children have played on them. As a result, damaged porch tin shingles are a common occurrence.

When maintenance is due on metal shingle roofs, the porch roof may be handled differently than upper roofs because of excessive damage.

Here are four solutions:

1. Cover the porch roof with the fully reinforced restoration system

This solution is not often used, but as the Washington, DC, owner in the case study described below will attest, this solution is a good one to know about.

2. The use of the standing seam panels has been a popular choice for a porch roof.

The reasons are obvious: Both standing seam and shingles are traditional metal styles of roofing. Also, with the traditional standing seam panels, the metal shingles complement each other quite attractively. The cost of this approach is less expensive than new metal shingles.  Note: new metal shingles are a possibility, but proceed carefully.

3. Coat existing modern asphalt shingles.

If modern asphalt shingles have already been installed as a solution, every owner will agree the overall house appearance is usually undesirable. On these porches, where tin shingles are visible on other roofs, the least expensive approach may be to coat the porch asphalt shingles with the same acrylic tint as the rest of the metal tin shingles. To the eye, the color ties in the different roofs.

4. Another inexpensive approach is to install a smooth, rolled roofing installation.

Then coat the rubber or mineral surface roofing with the same acrylic color that has been applied to the embossed tin shingles of the upper roofing areas. One customer coated her porch roof with an acrylic tint that accented the trim of her stone house. Another customer coated his porch shingles to buy him time to focus on more expensive renovations.

Case history: Owner balances her options

For example, an historical district owner faced a real dilemma. The enclosed porch roof area leaked into her living room. The local historical society flatly rejected any plan to replace the roof unless the same metal shingles were used. Her budget could not afford to replace with new shingles at this point.
In this situation, the owner had to balance her priorities between satisfactory appearance, performance and budget.

Her strategy was to opt for
1) stopping the leakage into her living room and
2) avoiding a conflict with the local historical society.

To accomplish this decision, the fully reinforced system with restoration green acrylic was applied. This system consists of four layers of acrylic with mesh between two of the coating layers.
For this situation at that particular time, the approach made sense. From the driveway, the porch roof surface looks presentable. Since the back door is the main entrance, the appearance issue seemed resolved for the roof surface. Incidentally, the leakage situation was solved.
See the photos illustrating this case study at shingle porch in Washington, DC..

In conclusion, usually there are several alternatives to resolving problems with vintage metal roofing. 

About the Author

Miriam Cunningham owns and operates a hands-on roofing company that specializes in restoring and preserving old standing seam, embossed tin shingles and copper roofing. Her experience as a woman-owned company dates back to 1984.

Taunton Vintage Tin Night 5/7/11

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