![]() Lighter building materials bring more installation choices, adding to copper’s popularity among architects.Īrmoring your home in copper will save you considerable worry through the coming decades.Īs storm systems change and the climate becomes more volatile, copper and other naturally durable materials are a smart investment. Although modern hooking systems can help older homes bear the extra weight, an airy metal like copper can be a beautiful and resilient substitute. Unlike slate, copper is lightweight and can put less strain on a home not suited to the natural weightiness of stone. And like slate and clay tile, copper is fire resistant. ![]() The accumulating patina will shroud the original copper, protecting it against the battering storms, snows, and baking days to come.Ĭopper offers a permanence that few roofing materials - save for slate and clay tiles - can boast. After decades of exposure to rain, snow, and sleet, this lack of extra maintenance can result in serious money and time saved. Unlike steel, copper won’t rust or corrode, nor will it need to be painted at any point in its lifecycle. Particularly so for copper.Īmong other popular metal roofing options, copper is king. In a world of increasing scarcity, true re-usability is incredibly rare and equally valuable. These synthetic products can’t be transformed into anything else they’re simply waste, accumulating in our oceans, and they’ll remain waste for eons.Ĭopper is natural, harmless, and infinitely reusable. Contrast this against composite or asphalt shingles that are fully synthetic, enjoy shorter lifespans, and frequently wind up in dumps where they winnow down into tiny plastic particles instead of biodegrading. The raw material can be used again, countless times for countless new products, even if its career as a roof has ended. Perhaps forward-thinking durability isn’t such an antiquated idea.Ĭopper, as a natural and fully recyclable product with high recovery value, rarely finds its way into a landfill. Two very different roofs, both absolutely copper.Īnd yet today’s consumers, usually so fickle with their technology, are showing renewed interest in natural, sustainable, recyclable, and resilient building materials. Yet the antique patina of a well-aged, but nonetheless sturdy copper roof has an entirely different character than their still brilliant children. In the right hands, copper can be bent and soldered into almost any shape. Among modern architects, copper is a popular choice thanks to its flexibility, beauty, and sustainability. Unlike rust, this extra layer protects the underlying copper from further corrosion and is considered by most a great improvement over the classic copper shine.Ĭonsumer interest in natural roofing materials – like copper and slate – has brought fresh attention to the art of metal roofing and its material advantages. Mix in some acid rain and sulfur and this thin crust will turn green (in a decade or two). This surface coating is called Verdigris Patina the metal’s surface combines with airborne pollutants to form a sturdy carbonate layer. The dazzling, but short lived shine fades to a deeper brown, followed by the soft green we all know and love. ![]() While copper first shines a warm bronze, its color and texture quickly changes, sometimes within a few days, when exposed to open air and atmosphere. Among these three, copper is considered the premier choice. High praise indeed.Ĭopper, alongside steel and zinc, are popular metal roofing materials because of their beauty, flexibility, and lasting durability. With its 77 foot domed copper roof, Jefferson hoped it would represent “the authority of nature and power of reason.” Or that Bartholdi and Eiffel chose copper when they designed The Statue of Liberty to best represent American liberty. Consider Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia. ![]() Some of America and Europe’s best known landmarks have the kiss of copper. Gold, then, became the stuff of jewelry and pure luxury, and copper would rise higher thanks to its utility and beauty.Īs smelting processes became more advanced and larger quantities of copper could be forged into more complex and larger shapes, this wonder metal would find its way into our buildings, sculptures, and other works of enduring art. And while gold is easy to shape, it isn’t nearly as hard once cooled and poorly suited to the hard life of a tool or weapon. Amusingly, early humans often noticed another popular metal – gold – in close proximity to their copper deposits. And eventually, threads of copper would tie the world up with a nice digital bow. Since around 3500 BCE, humanity has used copper for everything from weapons to pipes to bowls to all manner of farming tools. It helped human-kind transition from the bootstrapping stone age to the metal obsessive bronze age. ![]() There are few metals more intimate to human history than copper. ![]()
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