A standing seam metal roof is the kind of roof most people buy once.
That’s really the appeal of it. You put it on and you stop thinking about the roof. No more counting shingles in the yard after a windy night, no more doing the math on how many winters are left in it, no more wondering whether this is the storm that finds its way into the ceiling. For a lot of the families we work with, that peace of mind is the whole point. They’re planning to be in this house a long time, and they’d like the roof to be one thing that’s simply handled.
What makes that true isn’t the panels by themselves. It’s everything underneath and around them: what’s on the deck, what happens at the edges, how the roof deals with a heavy Central PA snow, what gets sealed where the roof meets the house. Those are the parts nobody sees from the driveway, and they’re the difference between a roof that quietly does its job for decades and one that gives you trouble.
So here’s what goes into ours, start to finish, in plain English.
The package, step by step
The old shingles come off, down to the bare deck
The old roof comes off, all the way down to the wood deck. Nothing gets layered over.
That matters more on a metal roof than most homeowners realize. Standing seam panels lie across the deck underneath them and will telegraph whatever they’re sitting on, so the deck needs to be flat and sound. A full tear-off is also the one and only look anyone will get at your decking while it’s exposed, which is where the next several decisions get made honestly instead of guessed at.
Ice and water shield goes down at the eaves and in every valley
Before the underlayment, the eaves and the valleys get ice and water shield: a self-adhering waterproof membrane that seals to the deck and around fasteners.
Those two areas earn it. Ice dams form when heat escaping the attic melts snow up on the roof and that meltwater refreezes when it reaches the colder eave. The ice backs up under the roofing and finds its way into the ceiling. Valleys have the same problem for a different reason: every bit of water off two roof planes funnels through them, so they carry more volume than anywhere else on the house.
This is on every roof we do, not just the ones that look like they’ll need it. It’s the cheapest insurance on the roof and the most expensive thing to go back and add later.
Synthetic underlayment covers the entire deck
Over the rest of the deck goes synthetic roofing paper, before a single panel goes on.
This is your roof’s second line of defense. Metal sheds water, but wind-driven rain, snow that melts and refreezes, and condensation on the underside of the panels all end up on the layer beneath. Synthetic underlayment handles that. Unlike old felt paper, it won’t rot, dry out, or turn brittle over the decades a metal roof is expected to last.
This is an easy place to cut a corner, because once the panels are on, nobody will ever see it again. That’s exactly why we don’t.
Drip edge at the eaves, gable flashing at the rakes
Drip edge is the metal trim that runs along the bottom edge of your roof, where water leaves. Gable flashing runs up the rake edges, the sloped sides.
Their job is to control where water goes at the two places a roof is most vulnerable. Drip edge kicks runoff out past the fascia board and into the gutter instead of letting it curl back underneath and soak the wood. Gable flashing seals the edge against wind-driven rain and keeps weather from getting under the panel from the side.
Undersized or missing edge metal rots fascia and soffit on an otherwise healthy roof, and you won’t see it happening until the wood is soft.
24-gauge AZ50 Galvalume standing seam panels, 19-1/2 inches wide
This is the roof itself. It’s the A.B. Martin ABSeam panel, a snap-lock system with concealed fasteners, and we’re an A.B. Martin Preferred Partner. Let’s translate the spec.
24 gauge is the thickness of the steel: a minimum of 0.0236 inches of bare steel before paint. Lower gauge numbers mean thicker metal. A heavier panel holds a flatter plane across its width and stands up better to hail and to the occasional foot on the roof.
AZ50 Galvalume is the substrate under the paint. It’s bare steel coated in a mixture of zinc, aluminum, and a trace of silicon, and it’s what stands between the steel and rust. It does its hardest work at cut edges and down along the eave, where water sits the longest.
19-1/2 inches is the coverage width. That’s how much of your roof each panel actually covers once it’s locked to the one beside it, not the width of the raw steel. A wider panel means fewer seams running up your roof than a narrower one does.
Standing seam means the panels lock together at raised vertical seams, 1-1/2 inches tall on this panel, with the fasteners hidden underneath instead of driven through the face of the metal. On an exposed-fastener roof, every screw is a small hole through the panel sealed with a rubber washer, and those washers age faster than the metal around them. A standing seam roof doesn’t put holes in the water-shedding surface at all.
The finish is Sherwin-Williams Fluropon, a PVDF coating made with 70 percent Kynar 500 resin. It’s the same class of finish used on commercial and institutional buildings, and its job is to hold color and gloss rather than chalk and fade. It carries a 40-year film integrity warranty from the coating manufacturer.
The color is yours to choose, and so is the panel profile. We confirm both with you before anything is ordered. Color is the decision everybody enjoys making; the rest of this page is the part that decides whether the roof does its job.
Poly foam strips to control oil canning, when your panel calls for them
Whether your roof needs these depends on the panel you choose. Here’s the honest version.
Poly foam strips run down the center of a panel to support the wide flat area between the seams and reduce oil canning. Oil canning is the slight waviness you can sometimes see across a broad flat panel when the light hits at an angle. It’s cosmetic rather than a performance problem, and it’s a normal characteristic of flat metal, but homeowners notice it, and nobody enjoys noticing it on a brand new roof.
Our standard is the smooth 19-1/2 inch panel, and on a smooth panel we run the strips.
Some profiles don’t need them. A striated or textured panel breaks up that flat surface on its own, and those choices are laid out on our metal panel options page. When the strips aren’t needed on your roof, we say so rather than billing you for them.
Flashing everywhere the roof meets a wall or a chimney
Anywhere your roof runs into something vertical, there’s a joint that has to be sealed with metal. Sidewalls, dormer walls, and chimneys are the usual places.
Flashing is what keeps water from running down that vertical surface and slipping in behind the roofing. It’s a hand-fitted detail, and it’s where persistent, hard-to-find leaks tend to start, rather than out in the open field of the roof.
Snow Defender 6500 snow retention, color-matched to your roof
Every metal roof we install includes a snow retention system. On this package that’s Snow Defender 6500, finished to match your roof color so it reads as part of the roof rather than an add-on.
A metal roof is slick by design, which is one of its advantages. It’s also the reason a heavy Central PA snow can release all at once instead of melting off gradually. Snow guards hold that load in place and let it come down in a controlled way, which protects gutters, landscaping, vehicles in the driveway, entry doors, and anyone standing under the eave.
It’s worth confirming snow retention appears in any metal roof quote you’re comparing. Its absence isn’t something you’d discover until the first real storm.
New roof boots on every pipe, never reused
Roof boots are the flashings that seal around every pipe coming up through your roof. Plumbing vents, mostly.
They get replaced, not reused. The rubber collars dry out, crack, and pull away from the pipe long before the roof around them wears out, and a failed boot puts water directly into your ceiling. Reinstalling an old boot under a new metal roof means building a roof meant to last decades around a part that’s already partway through its life.
Vented ridge capping at the peak
The ridge cap covers the peak where the two roof planes meet. Vented ridge capping does that while letting hot, moist air escape from your attic.
Ventilation is the part of a roof that’s easiest to overlook, and it does more work than most homeowners realize. Trapped attic heat and moisture shorten roof life from underneath, drive up cooling costs in summer, and contribute to ice damming in winter. Exhaust at the ridge only works if there’s matching intake down at the soffits, so we look at your whole ventilation picture rather than capping the peak and calling it done.
Every scrap of construction debris leaves with us
The debris goes when we go. That’s part of the scope, not a separate line.
We use the Catch-All protection system and an Equipter 4000 to keep tear-off material off your lawn, out of your flowerbeds, and away from your driveway, and we run magnetic sweeps for nails before we leave. Leave things better than you found them is not a slogan we hang on the wall. It’s the last hour of every job.
What we look at on your specific home
A couple of items can’t honestly be listed as standard, because the answer depends on your roof. We evaluate each of these on site, we tell you what we find, and whatever your home needs is written into your proposal with a number attached before you sign. No surprises after the fact.
The condition of your roof deck
We can’t see the condition of your decking until the old roof is off. Most decks are fine. Some have soft spots or old damage around chimneys and valleys.
If we find rot, we stop and show you, in a photo or in person, before we replace anything. Then you get a number for the repair before the work happens. Metal panels need a sound, flat deck underneath, so it isn’t a step we can skip, but it also isn’t a step we’ll take without telling you first.
How much flashing your roof actually needs
Flashing is in the standard package, but the quantity isn’t fixed. A simple gable roof needs very little. A home with two dormers, a chimney, and three valleys needs considerably more, and each of those details is fitted by hand.
We count them on your roof, not on an average roof.
What backs the work
Your standing seam roof carries our 10-year Esh Builders workmanship warranty, which covers our installation. The panel finish carries its own 40-year film integrity warranty from the coating manufacturer, covering the paint film itself. Both are listed by name and term on your proposal, so you can read them before you sign rather than after, and we handle the warranty registration paperwork so it’s filed correctly and on time instead of sitting in a drawer.
Behind all of it is a family that has been building in Central Pennsylvania for three generations. We’re not hard to find in ten years.
What’s not included in this scope
Being clear about what isn’t in the package protects you as much as it protects us.
- Gutters and downspouts. Not part of the roofing package. Many homeowners choose to replace gutters while the roof is off, since it’s the easiest time to do it, and we can quote seamless gutters separately.
- Skylights. Replacing or adding a skylight is its own scope with its own materials. If you have existing skylights, we’ll talk through your options during the consultation.
- Decking replacement. Repairing rotted or damaged sheathing is quoted separately once we can see it, as described above.
- Structural, framing, and interior repairs. If there’s existing water damage inside, that’s outside a roofing scope, and we’ll tell you plainly rather than roofing over it.
If anything else comes up mid-project, you hear about it from us first, with a price, before the work happens.
The whole package in one list
- Remove and dispose of the existing shingles
- Install ice and water shield at the eaves and in the valleys
- Install synthetic roofing paper
- Install drip edge along the eaves and gable flashing along the gables
- Install 24-gauge AZ50 Galvalume ABSeam standing seam panels, 19-1/2 inch coverage width, Fluropon finish, in the color you choose
- Install poly foam strips down the center of the panel where the profile calls for them
- Install flashing against the house as needed
- Install Snow Defender 6500 snow retention, color-matched to the roof
- Install new roof boots
- Install vented ridge capping
- Remove and dispose of all construction debris
Evaluated on your specific home and written into your proposal: the condition of your roof deck, and the amount of flashing your roof requires.
The roof you get to stop thinking about
Your home is your biggest investment. The roof is the part of it working the hardest and getting noticed the least, right up until the day it stops working.
Done right, a standing seam roof takes that off your list for a very long time. That’s what all of the above is really for. Every layer, every piece of flashing, every detail hand-fitted where the roof meets the house is there so you can look up at it, think nothing at all, and go on about your day.
There’s no rush here. Most folks think about a roof for a good while before they do anything about it, and that’s the right way to make a decision this size. When you’re ready, we’ll come out, walk your roof, and talk through what makes sense for your home, whether that’s this year or a few years down the road.