Roof Shingles – Why They’re The Perfect Choice For Your New Home

You might’ve heard of roof shingles — and if you’ve been reading our articles or visited our site, you definitely have. If you haven’t, or at least aren’t terribly familiar with them, we can’t blame you. Our national roofing obsessions fall into two basic categories: tin and tile. From the traditional corrugated metal to tile, Australian roofs have a familiar, homely look to them.

As much as we love roof shingles, they’re still not hugely widespread in Australia.

But we’re hoping to change that.

Asphalt roof shingles are a worthy addition to the choice of roofing materials for Aussie homes. In fact for some home designs we would — and have! — argue they’re the only choice.

So why are asphalt roof shingles the perfect choice for your new home? Let’s take a look.

Roof Shingles Are Distinctly Beautiful

Asphalt roof shingles are just on a different level when it comes to appearance.

There are some very beautiful, decorative tile options available on the market. Even corrugated metal has its own particular charm.

Neither are able to capture quite the same distinct look and texture of shingles. Tile can create a roughly similar effect of the speckled, salt-and-pepper colouring and neat horizontal lines, but it’s not the same. The smooth, flat, clean lines of properly installed asphalt roof shingles just can’t be captured by anything other than, well, shingles.

Everyone building a new home understands the importance of building an attractive house. You want it to have good curbside appeal — it’ll help the property appreciate in value, endear you to your neighbours, and give you a sense of personal pride and satisfaction when you come home at the end of a long day.

Asphalt shingles give you that beautiful curbside appeal, and help separate your home from those around you. When everyone else has tile roofs, the distinct lines and texture of roof shingles will make your home stand out like a beacon.

This aesthetic appeal is particularly important if you’re building certain types of homes. American-style homes such as Hamptons and Cape Cod styles simply need roof shingles. Anything else is inauthentic and spoils the overall design.

These homes were built and developed and perfected over decades with roof shingles in mind for their aesthetic; putting tin or tile on top would be doing everyone a disservice.

Of course, it’s very important that whoever’s installing the roof knows how to install asphalt roof shingles. Properly installed shingles are a sight to behold; poorly installed shingles are an eyesore.

There’s Over a Century of Use And Testing Behind Them

Asphalt roof shingles were invented in the USA and first used in 1901. By 1911 they were in wide use; by 1939, 11 million squares of shingles were being produced a year.

In that time, they’ve been tested in some incredibly harsh climates. Australia is known for its rough tropical weather up north and generally high temperatures in some parts of the country. The USA has all of this (although their tropical weather is down south, obviously) plus more.

Their heat waves can be as severe as ours, but their cold snaps far surpass anything Australia can come up with. There are areas known for suffering dozens of tornadoes every year. They get battered by rain, hail, snow and shine in ways Australia — mercifully — doesn’t.

And through it all, asphalt roof shingles have shown themselves to be a resilient, durable roofing material to tough it out through these conditions.

Asphalt roof shingles are ideally suited to our harsh climate, because they were developed in a country with a wider range of harsher conditions. They’ll survive cold temperatures that they’ll almost never experience in Australia, and withstand heat that’s all too familiar in our summer months.

Not only that, there are more homes in America sporting asphalt roofing shingles than there are homes in Australia. It’s tried, tested, and immensely popular — for good reason.

Asphalt Shingles – Made to Last

Asphalt roof shingles are made of many composite layers of materials. It’s a lengthy but interesting process of adding successive layers of compressed materials in such a way to ensure longevity and functionality.

Properly installed, premium quality asphalt roof shingles will last a solid 30 years before you need to do some decent maintenance on the roof. Other types of shingles, such as composition shingles and wood shingles, only last around 20 years.

Of course, this depends on a few factors. Proper home maintenance and bad weather can extend and shorten the life expectancy, respectively. But this is true of any roofing material.

Some builders out there might raise an eyebrow at a 30 year life expectancy for roof shingles — but, tile and corrugated metal are similar, respectively.

For the Best Result Get the Best Product

The number one asphalt roof shingle supplier is GAF, and we’re not saying that because we stock them — we stock them because we genuinely believe it. They’re the number one supplier in the USA, and supply all of the materials and parts necessary to fully install an asphalt shingle roof. From guards to runners to the shingles and everything in between, they have you covered.