Roofing Designs and Their Effects

BENEFITS OF MODERN ROOFING DESIGNS AND THEIR EFFECTS

Taking a good look into the roofing designs of the modern buildings in Nigeria to that of the old building, someone can easily spot the difference.

Besides the beauty of the modern roofing designs, something else can be noticed and that is the height of the building roof.

The height of the roof has been a significant change that can be found in modern building designs when compared to the roofing designs of the old buildings in Nigeria.

Builders often wish to make their building design unique especially when the client has enough financial backup for the aesthetic building designs which includes the plan for roofing.

The smart builders always consider quality, safety, and durability in every aspect of their design which is why the modern design of roofing has dominated the old design in Nigeria.

Modern roofing designs had been found to taller than the old designs. The modern buildings have their roofing heights sometimes twice the height of the old ones.

According to a civil engineer and a modern building expert, the average and most used height of modern building roofs had been 9 feet above the last block of the building.

Occasionally, the height used to be within 2 feet to 5 feet for old building design and this initial design has an advantage of saving the roofing cost than the modern design but it has the disadvantages of easy leakage problems, corrosion due to trapped metallic objects that fall on it, and has effect to the beauty of the entire building appearance.

The modern design offers many advantages when compared to its disadvantage of making the roofing costs to be high. Some modern building can have their roofs’ height up to 12 feet tall from the last 2 blocks of the building top.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF MODERN ROOFING DESIGNS

The modern roofing design helps water to quickly rundown from the roofing sheets during rainfall.

It helps any object thrown on the top of the building to quickly rundown from the roof which will help prevent possible corrosion and rust of the roofing sheets.

It reveals the beauty of the building and offers it good aesthetic look.

The design helps to reduce the problem of water leakages in the building. When rain is falling, the deceleration of the water droplet from the roof will be very fast thereby force all the water to come down quickly so holes in the roof may not easily have a good volume of water entering into them.

It helps the individual have access to the top of the building ceiling surface for electrical wiring or other purposes without having to crawl on the ceiling surfaces.

Despite the above advantages, it has the following disadvantages;

It increases the cost of buying the roofing sheets because; the taller the roof height, the higher quantity of the roofing sheets that will be needed.

It increases the quantity of woods to be used for the roofing project which means higher cost in the buying of woods.

The above two disadvantages are the matter of an increase in the total cost of roofing in the building. So, any client with enough money for the building project would opt for the choice of using the modern design.

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OLD ROOFING DESIGNS

With the maximum height of 6 feet, the old roofing design does not go higher than that. Though the size of a building may affect the overall height of the roofing due to the cost involve for 9 feet and above heights of roofing, large modern buildings do have a minimum of 9 feet height for their roof.

Therefore the old design has a lower height which will have the advantage of roofing the building with few quantities of roofing sheets than in the modern design of the same building size.

It makes the roofing period shorter since the roofing skeleton will require fewer woods and few days to fix, the entire roofing work may be just a few days.

The design is good for short spans roofing sheets like the Cameroon zinc and others of similar size which are usually cheaper than the long span roofing sheets.

Notwithstanding the above advantages, the old design has the following disadvantages;

They create the conditions that can make the roof to start leaking water after sometime. This happens when stone or a metallic object falls on the surface of the roof and was unable to fall off from the roof due to the low slope of the roof caused by the low height.

The object will start to react chemically with the roofing sheet by creating oxides and sparking corrosion and rust which will eventually create small holes on the roof that will cause water leakage to occur during rainfall.

The next disadvantage is that any water leakage in the design will be noticed easily any small hole created in it will become a source for water leakage unlike the roof with 9 feet and above heights.

Small holes in them will not allow water to leak even if it does the quantity will be insignificant due to the high slope of the roof which forces every drop of water on it to rundown immediately.

Though the old design is cheaper and easier to carry out, it offers less beauty to the building irrespective of the type of roofing sheets used when compared to the modern design of the roofing with the same type of roofing sheets.

The obvious advantages and disadvantages of the two designs had made most builders to adopt the modern style despite its cost disadvantage, and that has actually offered more beauty to the modern buildings.

Occasionally, the size of a building may affect the height of the roof and its beauty. Larger buildings tend to have lower height, while the smaller buildings tend to have higher height and it gives more beauty to buildings of such category especially if costly roofing sheets were used for the roofing.

Conclusion

There may be other issues relating to the two types of roofing design which this post did not contain, more information may be added during the post updates.