Had a metal roof installed 2 years ago and have gone back and forth as to whether or not to post a review. I feel both the good and the bad need to be out there and each person can make up their own mind. Maybe we got (un)lucky with all of our problems.
Pros:
Crew was efficient, fast and even worked with a storm rolling in.
Looks great (minus the dormers that can't be completed despite Patrick's—Classic salesperson—assurance that this would not be a problem to have done after).
No raccoons and squirrels on our roof since we got it.
Got a reduction on our home insurance.
Got a grant from the City of Toronto for having an eco-roof/cool roof.
Have noticed a difference in our house's heating and cooling. Our third floor is nice and warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I work from home and, in the summers, I would not be able to work on the third floor as it got too hot. These past two summers, not only was I able to work from the third floor, I didn't have to turn on the air conditioning until much later in the season than I normally would.
Ken from Classic was a *huge* help in finishing up all the little detail stuff that should have been done in the beginning. Not sure if he is still there.
Great (and true) lifetime warranty.
Cons:
Poor communication; weeks between updates (usually involving me reaching out).
Lack of attention to detail: the front lip of the window in the front versus the back of the house was not done the same way (minor, but, again, attention to detail; makes one wonder what else is getting missed); incorrect number of skylights indicated on the quote; wrong type of skylight indicated (despite the salesman being on our roof for a long time); poor cleaning done: had to come back to pick up lots of metal bits in our eavestroughs (months later; delay only partly due to weather—not 3 months' worth) — years later and I am still finding very sharp bits of metal in our garden—be careful if you have kids and/or pets.
Misled by salesperson on several issues. One of them being that we would have no trouble finding someone to add aluminum cladding to our dormers (over the shingles). So far, no one wants to come and work on a metal roof, and when we ask for advice from Classic, we receive no response. So our house looks incomplete from the front and the back. When people ask us about our roof, they always ask about the dormers and why they were left like that. Not good advertising for the end product, unfortunately. Update to the dormers—we ended up having Classic do the dormers at a much higher cost as no other roofing company wanted to go on the metal roof); another issue we were misled on was the need for snowguards. I specifically asked about the closeness of our house to our neighbour's and was assured I did not need them. This is completely false and we had to have some installed after the fact (by Classic). And they are still not enough to stop the snow from damaging our neighbour's property.
When problems happen is when a company's true colours come out. Some of the problems could not have been avoided; others definitely could have. Still, this is no excuse for leaving the customer in the dark.
I would not recommend a metal roof if you already have skylights (unless you plan on replacing them). Ours had to be replaced (at Classic's cost; we paid for labour) and as much as they look great from the outside, again, the flashing and attention to detail on the inside are not great. I will have to take some of the flashing off and paint the wood framing that is showing through myself.
I would also not recommend if your house is very close to your neighbour's (ours is about 3 feet away from our neighbour's). The snow falling off our roof (even with snowguards) has caused damage to our neighbour's windows and front porch railing and roof. They now have to place outside protection on their windows in the winter in order to avoid further damage. As well, with all the snow falling from our roof now (instead of staying on the roof), it renders the passageway between our two houses unuseable in the winter due to the amount of snow that falls between the houses and the speed at which the snow comes down.
I wanted to give Classic a glowing review but for the many reasons above, I cannot. It is a shame as I love the product and many of our neighbours have commented on how good it looks.
Another update—this past summer, when we had very high winds (90-100 km/h), we had some of our aluminum shingles fly off. This should not have happened as they are guaranteed to withstand winds up to 193 km/h. These shingles are super light but also super sharp. If they land flat on someone, no problem, but if they land on their sides, they are razor-sharp! Classic crew came within a week and fixed the shingles (labour and materials were completely covered by their excellent warranty), though when we emailed them asking them about details of what was done and if they had checked more of the roof for damage, we received no response.
2020 update:
We finally had snow rails installed in 2019 in order to try and stem the flow of snow coming off our roof (this on top of our snow guards, which were not very helpful). These have greatly helped; however, the snow still falls between our house and our neighbour's and requires a lot more snow clearing than in the past, it just doesn't fall at a dangerous speed anymore. The thing with metal roofs is that the snow has to come off—that's the whole point; the speed at which it does can be an issue. I would recommend snow rails for any roof under which people walk.
Darryl at Classics was instrumental at sourcing these rails for our metal roof. He never gave up (even when we thought he had) until we were fully satisfied, even though it took a few years. We are now very happy with our metal roof and our snow rails. Companies will often ignore/drop a customer when there are problems but Darryl showed that he/his company will not give up until everything is perfect. Thank you, Darryl!
