Accessorising Your New Slate Roof

One of the most popular slate roofing accessories on slate roofs, for both new and older homes, is adding skylights. On older homes and period homes, many were built with limited windows resulting in a bit of a gloomy atmosphere, particularly in the winter months. Skylights enhance the internal ambiance and help save on energy bills.

On new homes, skylights are pretty much a given in design features. We install a lot of skylights in slate roofs.

This is particularly important for us to point out because whether you’re having the skylights installed as part of the roofing project on a new home or an existing home getting a new roof, it is essential that they be installed by someone who knows the care required. Even the highest quality slate tile installed by the most skilled craftsmen can be compromised by someone not qualified to be climbing on your roofing slate.

This is one reason we highly discourage, to the point of voiding your roofing warranty, allowing someone like cousin Vinny to “accessorise” your roof with say a satellite dish. You want to be very selective on who you allow access to your slate roof. It can take everything nature can throw at it, but cousin Vinny was not put there by nature.

In the Victorian and Edwardian period homes, many had ornate features like decorative cast iron ridge lace, picket ridging, and various styles of finials. It became particularly trendy in the 1960’s and 70’s to remove these features but reintegrating them has made a comeback just like many other things tend to run full circle.

More modern variations of these ornate features can be added to a new slate roof. Be sure to talk to a design professional or inquire with us about what some of your options are when you want your roof to have the little something extra. As emphasized above, you’ll almost certainly want to incorporate skylights into your new slate roof, installed by a qualified slate roofing specialist of course.