Residential roofing comes in many shapes and forms
. To begin, a roof on a house can come in different shapes. Each shape will generally dictate what type of residential roofing materials you will use on the roof.
One of the common shapes of roofs is of course the flat roof. This type of roof will generally not be in a part of the country that has a lot of snow or heavy ice because there is no way for the water from the melted snow or the melted ice or even the snow to fall from the roof. As snow falls it will accumulate on the room which may cause a lot of problems.
One of which is that the roof collapses. You will see a lot of this type of roof in areas like Southern California or parts of Arizona. There are certain residential roofing materials that more appropriate to a flat roof.
Another of the roof styles is a gable roof of which there are several forms depending on the part of the country they are in. This type of roof is one of the pitched roofs. The basic gable roof shape has two roof surfaces the same size and the pitch of the roof is at the same angle.
There are certain roofing materials that are best on this shape of roof. This and the hipped roof are most often seen. The hipped roof has different slope lines. These roofs are most effective at allowing water, debris or snow runoff.
Some other variations of a pitched roof are the mansard which many of the public buildings, as well as private homes in large cities in France have. It generally has four sides and is symmetrical. Some others are the saltbox which you will often see in Cape Cod, or a last one the gambrel which is kind of a cross between the hipped and gable roof. It is also sometimes called a barn roof.
These pitched roofs are the type of roof that is used in an area where it snows as the snow will fall off the roof and not accumulate on it. There are other variations of roofs of course, but this is a simple presentation of some of them.
There are many different types of residential roofing material that are available for all roof types so you do have a variety of choices and colors.