Roofing Starts

Richard Serra Sculpture at DIA Beacon.

After a lot of deliberation we decided to go with weathering steel roofing.  Weathering  steel is formulated to produce a beautiful rust patina and, in principle, stop rusting once the surface patina is formed.  Sculptors love it.  After walking through the Serra installations at DIA Beacon in last summer I knew that if it was possible at all, I wanted to live under a rusted roof.  There are a lot of issues and it remains to be seen if it was a good decision.  It is a corrugated roofing material that is made from significantly heavier gauge steel than more standard steel roofing materials.  Some manufacturers claim that in the proper conditions it will last 80 years; even so, no one will warranty it.  We live in an arid climate and it should be good here; it is not good near salt water or in a humid climate. 

Starting the installation of the corrugated (not yet) rusted roof.

You can see a streak of rust above the cab of the lift.

Rusted roofing is very popular in Steamboat Springs CO and up in Jackson WY but no one in Laramie has a rusted roof yet (there is a new house out near the cement plant that has two few small sections of rusted roof). When the material was delivered to UBC in Laramie the top sheet had some rust on it and the UBC guy called the manufacturer to tell them there was a problem.