shingles roof install by Pro Roofing

Installing your new roof, roofing over an old roof

Roofing over an existing roof eliminates the need for underlayment and saves the time and effort of tearing off the old roof. However, if the old one is too irregular for a smooth finish, tear it off. Otherwise, the new one wont look right and wont protect as well. Roofs are heavy; local codes may […]

slate roof repair

The pervasiveness of American slating

The pervasiveness of American slating references here, particularly in this century, is unquestionable. American architectural books and construction guides, which were well known in Canada, often contained advice to slaters or to roof replace contractors. The Canadian Architect and Builder in answer to inquiries concerning slate drew on American pocketbook authorities such as Kidder and […]

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Implications Causing Roofers to Enter Slate Business

One of the implications of other roofers entering the slating business was that the importance of experience passed-down from one roof company to another was reduced while the technical direction of trade journals and building product suppliers, that is the slate quarries, was correspondingly enhanced. This evolution in the slating trade meant that Canadian slating […]

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Laying Slate Roofs

The business of slating consisted chiefly in covering the roofs of buildings with slate and all the variations in sizes, laps and fastenings that that could entail. Slate covering was also influenced to an extent by other roof elements, particularly the form, structure, under sheathing and flashing. For any given historical period in Canada the […]

Slate Roofing History – More on the Blog

Variously cut slate to heighten roof decoration was strongly discouraged by the promoters of Queen Anne and just as strongly ignored by its mass interpreters. The pretty effect of tiles pointed to form a saw tooth line or rounded like fish scales was admitted by J.J. Stevenson, but he added “ourВ architecture lately has trusted too […]

Single colour slate

Single colour slate with scaling in the Queen Anne Revival The Queen Anne Revival mode led the return to single colour slate work. Queen Anne style had a little to do with Queen Anne and much to do withВ many other countries and monarchs. The style as it evolved under English architect Richard Norman Shaw and […]

The Advancement of Slate Roofing Technology

At mid-century the great English critic John Ruskin saw scale decoration on the northern or steep roof as an appropriate symbol of the waterproofing armour of the fish scale. On steep domestic roofs, there is no ornament better than may be obtained by merely rounding or cutting to an angle, the lower extremities of the […]

The geographic distribution of slate roofing in eastern Canada

The geographic distribution of slate roofing in eastern Canada can only partially be explained by urbanization and accessibility to materials by Toronto roofing companies. Slate roofs in the regions of Trinity Bay, Newfoundland and Eastern Townships, Quebec, certainly fit the classic reason for the use of materials nearness to sources. Yet while most centres in […]