# Decra and/or Gerrard Metal Roofs ?



## Ed the Roofer (Jan 27, 2007)

I dug up this converstion on a thread from last fall on another site.

http://www.rooferscoffeeshop.com/forums/viewreplies.asp?TopicID=23032&Srch=True&tpage=1&forumid=0

See if that helps.

Ed


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## johnk (May 1, 2007)

I've recently have done my first Enviroshake project and Is a great product to work with,put on just like cedar shingles.Google enviroshake:yes:


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## coolflatroof (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi, 

We work with Gerard, and their parent company - All-Met. 
Decra is not much different from them. There is also Metro Roman tile.... Basically same stuff, just slightly different color charts.

Pros:

This product looks awesome, work great, and you don't really need snow gourds, as unlike regular metal roof, stone-coated steel does not shed snow. It is also much "cheaper" compared with "actual clay tiles"... but still an expensive product.

Cons:

This stuff is however a pain to install. Definitely not for DIY, and even not for most roofers. Like Ed mentioned in the other post, you need people that do metal full time, to install this product. 

Your price to install will differ by region. Here in New England, cost of living is much higher than in many other parts of the country, so price for metal roofs is also higher.

There is more info on this stuff on our website: http://www.newenglandmetalroof.com



Now about plastic alternatives. I saw a clay-tile-looking plastic roof on a mansard of a Chinese restaurant not far from Cape Cod bridges. It look like VERY cheap plastic, and had a weird green color. it also came in large sections of like 5' x 5' and had exposed screws, that were rusting. 
Overall, it looked looked terrible. 
I also saw a composition material "clay tile" at NERCA roofing show last week. Those were actually resembling the real clay tile in the way they were made, so i guess you can use them for tile roof repair. Although they were light, they came in individual pieces, so again cost to install will be very high, due to a lot of manual labor.

My advice is that you go with Metal. Just find a good installer, and don't try to save a few bucks here and there. Installation is crucial to metal roofs, and is 80% of a quality roof, and material being 20% since we already know it is a very good material.

Good luck


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