Please do support archive.org (Internet Archive) but archive.is is a different entity (which apparently one can donate to, though not sure of its structure), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today
Although I do agree with the mission of archiving content, I find it quite interesting to be willing to pay for an organisation to archive content as a way to get content for free rather than pay for the content itself.
It's a bit of a conundrum because we need both, so ideally everyone would pay for both. It costs money to archive content, it also costs money to produce it.
Now this is under the assumption you're praising archiving services as a workaround paywalls, but I may have misinterpreted your comment: in which case feel free to correct me!
Steel roofing seems like a fairly upscale thing now, just not with that wavy corrugated shape. The alternating wide flat area, then small rib pattern is the one I see around the most.
Those will last basically forever. The rib covers the fasteners and prevents water intrusion. The old style corrugated stuff leaks pretty bad unless you torque the screws juuuust right. Pretty sure the grommets under the screw heads degrade after a while, even if you get them perfect.
There's a housing project local to me that installed a bunch of these metal roofs about 20 years ago, and very few are left, they've been replacing them with asphalt shingles. I'm not aware of why, but I presume something went wrong. Certainly the gov't spends as little as it can get away with on those houses, they probably thought it would be cheaper in the long run than asphalt when they did it.
Installing them requires qualified labor. You have to crimp each standing seam just right for the roof to remain watertight. Installing corrugated iron or shingles is much easier in comparison.
It blows my mind that one could screw up corrugated iron roofing. It lasts a long time and is pretty basic to install. Many old villas here in New Zealand have their roofs replaced and they are about 100 years old. Arthur’s Pass down south has houses entirely clad in an every version of the stuff (it’s thick and heavy) and they are over 100 years old now.
That's called a standing seam metal roof. They're fantastic because the joints are in those raised parts where they stay away from water. The wide flat areas are an unbroken surface that really can't leak. They have an expected life span of 50 years as opposed to 30 for many traditional asphalt shingle roofs and they can be recycled completely. IMHO they're one of the all around best materials. The one reason you don't see more of them is that they cost more up front. But the longer life span means it's really a better long term value.
Slate's expensive, and roofing with it is labour intensive and requires skilled people
Looks lovely but if I was building a house I'd go for a sheet metal roof and it can be done in a couple of days at most even if it won’t be that different cost wise from tiles
> The one reason you don't see more of them is that they cost more up front. But the longer life span means it's really a better long term value.
A really unfortunate truth. Planning for more than 20 years in a house is a rare thing. Home tenure floats around 5-15 years depending on the market. So any investment in a property that doesn't pay off in that time frame is rarely done.
In my local area (US PNW) metal roofs are the opposite of upscale. They were pitched at the low end of the market as being incredibly durable. But they are noisy and ugly, and I only see them installed in lower income neighborhoods. I am also not convinced they've turned out to be as trouble-free as promised, as our local public housing project has started ripping them off and replacing with traditional asphalt shingles.
I agree with you in terms of the reputation of metal roofs - they’re viewed as cheap. But I am not really sure why. The noise isn’t a problem in practice when they’re installed over appropriate decking. Many new roofs also have insulating layers between the highest living spaces and the outside roofing material, which can further reduce the noise. The metal itself can be less attractive, but there are also ones that look more premium and come close to the appearance of other materials. I feel it especially compares well against membranes used on flat roofs (asphalt or various plastic sheets).
When I built a turkey coop this past spring, plywood price was at its peak, so I decided I'd side and roof it with 18-gauge steel. It was quick, easy, looks great, and has proven itself weather-tight. I love working with wood, but I have to say the ease, cost, and looks of the steel have converted me for this purpose.
Also,
> More intuitively, consider a common pizza-eating strategy: gently bending your slice before bringing it to your mouth obviates the risk of buckling and consequent mess.
is a perfect, natural analogy. Why can I never come up with such beautiful explanations?
> is a perfect, natural analogy. Why can I never come up with such beautiful explanations?
Good writers borrow: great writers steal.
It would be nice to come up with the right analogy from whole cloth, but especially in non-fiction writing it's almost as good to recognize a great analogy or turn of phrase, store it away in your mind, and reproduce it (rewritten in the house style, perhaps) when you need the mot juste for your own readers. I've heard the analogy before, and I suspect the writer or editor of the Economist had too.
Steel does rust, but good metallurgy and coatings help. I live in the upper Midwest where road salt is used quite heavily, yet the prevalence of super rusty cars has really diminished.
Steel items that are not exposed to salt either rust much more slowly, or develop a patina that slows further rusting. That's not quite so easy in coastal areas.
Modern stuff is treated. Old stuff like a roof I had was just thicker than modern. The roof was standing seams at probably 30-40 years old. While there was rust, it was superficial. Takes a long time rust clear through even in Florida.
I often wonder why these aren’t the material of choice for interior uses as well. Why does everything use drywall, which requires the messiness of mudding and taping and so on? I feel like a metal panel system that is removable would be much more durable and would allow access to the in-between spaces more easily.
I live in rural Australia. Corrugated iron is everywhere, and I love it. It is durable, lasts a really long time, is easy to repurpose. I know an older gentleman here who built a really nice barn out of some repurposed corrugated iron roofing. I'm about to build a shed for a home office, and will use corrugated iron. It is cheap, easy to work with, comes in decent colors (e.g. the ColorBond brand in Australia), is strong without being overengineered. It's great stuff.
I grew up in rural Australia (now a long way from there) and one of my memory triggers is the sound of old corrugated iron ‘ticking’ and ‘pinging’ after a day in the hot sun.
I’m a New Zealander and laughed at this - of course the Australian remembers what it does with heat. Over here it’s massive rainfall, not heat, which generates the noise.
Agreed. Colourbond on our house and shed, and most in the street. Next door's 40yo corrugated shed roof is a work of rust orange beauty. The sounds on a hot day too ... unmistakable and so of the place :)
Perhaps the most unorthodox use of corrugated iron was the Bob Semple tank [1] of WWII. It was basically a corrugated iron shell on a Caterpillar D8 chassis, with 6 machine guns for armament. The eponymous designer and New Zealand's Minister for Works at the time, Bob Semple, based his design off a photo of an American tank he had on a postcard.
Needless to say, it wasn't exactly successful. Only 3 prototypes were built, none were used in combat, and they were eventually converted back into tractors.
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It's a bit of a conundrum because we need both, so ideally everyone would pay for both. It costs money to archive content, it also costs money to produce it.
Now this is under the assumption you're praising archiving services as a workaround paywalls, but I may have misinterpreted your comment: in which case feel free to correct me!
Looks lovely but if I was building a house I'd go for a sheet metal roof and it can be done in a couple of days at most even if it won’t be that different cost wise from tiles
A really unfortunate truth. Planning for more than 20 years in a house is a rare thing. Home tenure floats around 5-15 years depending on the market. So any investment in a property that doesn't pay off in that time frame is rarely done.
Another advantage is that they reflect heat as well. And for people in fire prone areas, they reduce some of the combustion potential of the roof.
Lots of good reasons in addition to the longevity.
Also,
> More intuitively, consider a common pizza-eating strategy: gently bending your slice before bringing it to your mouth obviates the risk of buckling and consequent mess.
is a perfect, natural analogy. Why can I never come up with such beautiful explanations?
Not sure how applicable that observation is. Just sharing a thought.
Good writers borrow: great writers steal.
It would be nice to come up with the right analogy from whole cloth, but especially in non-fiction writing it's almost as good to recognize a great analogy or turn of phrase, store it away in your mind, and reproduce it (rewritten in the house style, perhaps) when you need the mot juste for your own readers. I've heard the analogy before, and I suspect the writer or editor of the Economist had too.
Steel items that are not exposed to salt either rust much more slowly, or develop a patina that slows further rusting. That's not quite so easy in coastal areas.
I think they also apply paint to cut edges and drilled holes during installation.
Its extremely popular, probably seen on around 50% of roofs, and is also used for exterior cladding on a lot of new houses.
(although as cladding, it's usually used for only half the house, alternating with some other cladding)
>aircraft hangars, aircraft themselves
But I doubt that. (Corrugated aluminum, sure.)
Probably you could spray some kind of sound-absorbent layer over it, but then you'd be back to messiness again.
(OK maybe more than just one...)
Needless to say, it wasn't exactly successful. Only 3 prototypes were built, none were used in combat, and they were eventually converted back into tractors.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank