eli5 why roofs aren’t made out of metal or something more durable than shingles?

Question

Shingles need to be replaced every 10-30 year depending on wear and their type. It just seems so uneconomical and such a pain.

I get that metal conducts heat more easily, but couldn’t you just let a thin layer of moss grow on your metal roof and call it a day? Even if they dry out in the summer, I doubt metal + thin layer of dirt would conduct heat more than black shingles

In: 15

Answer 1

The house I bought still has all the original 1969 concrete tiles.

So did the 1930s house I lived in before that, those were ceramic tiles.

In fact, I’ve never had to replace or have replaced a roof tile. Most of the UK houses I know are the same. What shite are you building your roofs out of?

Unless a storm takes the tiles physically off the roof (rare here), they just stay there for decades.