Roofs in Indiana's far northeast corner
Angola sits about as far north as Indiana goes, and winter behaves accordingly — snow shows up earlier and hangs on longer than it does in Fort Wayne. For a roof, though, the season that matters is not the deep cold. It is the weeks of freeze and thaw on either side of it.
Here is what I want Steuben County homeowners to understand about ice dams, because metal gets both credited and blamed for them. An ice dam is mostly an attic problem: heat escaping into the attic melts snow on the deck, and the meltwater refreezes over the cold eave. A metal roof changes the consequences — a mechanically seamed panel gives backed-up water no fastener heads or shingle edges to work under. What metal does not do is fix the ventilation or insulation underneath. If your attic runs warm, I will say so, because a lifetime roof over an unsolved attic is half a job.
Sliding snow is a design decision
Metal sheds snow, which is mostly good news and occasionally a hazard. A roof plane's worth releasing at once over a doorway or a deck is not a small event. Around the lakes especially, where entries and decks face the water, snow retention above anything you walk under belongs in the quote from the beginning, not discovered after the first thaw.
Which roof on which house
Steuben County is lake cottages that became year-round homes, older houses in town, and farm ground with outbuildings. The screw-down panel on the pole barn is a fair trade; on the house you plan to keep, I steer people to a concealed-fastener system — standing seam on the long runs and low-slope porch sections, an interlocking metal shingle where you want a traditional look on a steeper roof. Exposed fastener does not go on anything under 4/12, and on a lake house taking wind off open water I would not put it on the house at all.
If you are selling in the next few years, good asphalt is the rational choice. If one detail is leaking on a sound roof, that is a repair, and we do not take repair calls.
Where we are coming from
Angola is a straight run up I-69 from our Fort Wayne office, about 45 minutes, and this corner of the state is regular territory for us. Whether the answer ends up being metal or one more round of asphalt, you will know why.
“We also serve surrounding towns and rural communities throughout Northeast Indiana, Northwest Ohio, and Southern Michigan within roughly a 90-minute drive of our Fort Wayne and Noblesville offices.”
