It is most likely you’ll give high priority to the choice of interior paints, tiles or carpets for your home, but what proportion of the overall value do they represent?

A roof alone represents around 5% of the value of your house, so it is important to make the right choices of materials, profiles and colours. Choosing a roof is an important decision - don’t leave it to a third party. Your choice of roof will affect you while living under it and have a significant effect on the re-sale value.

Whether building new or considering re-roofing, you should consider these 3 main points:

1. Materials
2. Profile (shape)
3. Colour

1. Materials:

There are a lot of conflicting opinions about which materials are best for roofs in Australia and New Zealand so its worth looking at some bare facts.

Both concrete and terracotta roof tiles are strong, hard wearing and durable. They are extremely weather resistant and can handle high wind conditions, though this will always depend on the fixing of the tiles. Concrete and terracotta tiles provide good thermal insulation in all types of weather, as well as good sound insulation. Roof tiles are quiet when it rains or hails compared to metal and make little or no noise when expanding or contracting.

Monier and Wunderlich tiles all have a 50 year guarantee to remain structurally sound, and in addition, Wunderlich Terracotta tiles are fired at high temperatures and will therefore never ever fade - no other roofing material can compare when it comes to these colourfast properties.

Another important fact in choosing roofing materials is the strength and direction of the wind. It’s a common misconception but more roofs are lifted off by suction than by any other means - therefore the weight of your roof is important.

Concrete and terracotta tiles provide the best size to weight ratio and in most cases will withstand the worst that the weather can throw at it with minimal damage. Compare losing perhaps a couple of tiles in a severe storm to a whole sheet of metal.