What colour should you choose for your roof?
Well, firstly, what’s a “good” colour for your roof is largely subjective. What one person loves, another dislikes.
However, there are some basic guidelines to follow when choosing a roof colour.
Firstly, though, it’s important to mention that you can’t actually see the exact colour of a roof.
Let me explain…
Due to factors such as glare, the angle of the roof, the shape and profile of the tiles or roof sheeting, shadows cast across the roof, and over-hanging trees all influence how a colour will appear on the roof.
Glare has the biggest influence on how colour appears, closely followed by the angle of the roof. These two factors generally make the roof appear lighter than the colour when viewed close-up on the actual roof, or on a colour card. This is a really significant factor that needs to be taken into consideration to avoid being disappointed with how it comes out. So if you like a particular colour on a colour chart, you may want to choose a colour that’s slightly darker.
You need to take these factors into account when choosing a colour.
When renovating or painting a whole house, if at all possible it’s best to have the roof done first, then choose the rest of the colours for the home. That’s because, again, you can’t know exactly how the colour will come out on the roof, due to the above mentioned factors.
An example of a roof restoration using our red coating.
With all that said, there are some guidelines to follow which will help:
Firstly, if it’s a brick house, look for other colours throughout the bricks. For example, if it’s a multi-colour brick and there’s a dark grey fleck in the bricks, then a dark grey roof can suit the home. Or look for trims to match up to. For example, say the home has dark green window frames. Then a dark green roof may match well.
You can match the garage door. Or the driveway. By having the roof colour somewhere else on the bottom of the house, this can create a colour balance.
As a general rule, many people believe contrasting colours between the walls and the roof create a nice effect. For example, a light coloured home with a dark coloured roof. Or vice versa.
Regarding guttering and fascia colours, there is no set rule in terms of whether to match the gutters and fascia to the roof or not. If you don’t see much of your roof from the ground, then matching the colour of the roof to the gutters and fascia can bring that colour down and give you more of that look. If you see a lot of your roof from the ground, then you may want to go with a contrasting colour on the gutters and fascia.
One excellent way to choose your roof colour is to drive around and see what’s been done on other houses.
The company that you’re considering for your roofing project should be able to provide you with houses that they’ve done in various colours. You can then go and see these colours in real life (which is better than choosing off a colour chart).
So once again, there are no set rules to choosing a roof colour but if you use the above tips as a guideline, you’ll increase your chances of choosing a colour that you’ll be happy with in the end.
Below is our current colour chart:
If you’re still feeling like you need advice on the colour choice for your roof then ask one of our roofing consultants, they see hundreds of roofs a year and will be able to point you in the right direction.
Written by Justin Eldershaw
Hi I'm Justin Eldershaw the Founder and Managing Director of Reliance Roof Restoration. I hope you enjoy visiting our website and please feel free to contact me or one of our friendly staff if you have any questions on roofing or roof restoration.