The short answer is the best you can find and/or have a proven master slater help you choose. When it comes to slate tiles, the illusion of a low price often serves as a disguise for your most expensive option, especially given the fact that once you get burned, you’ll end up paying what you should have invested the first time.

The advice to speak with a professional isn’t just because of our bias as professionals, it just makes sense for many reasons. The know the characteristics and quality of slate on the market, they can evaluate the style of your home and offer the best choice of options, they can listen to your needs and preferences before offering your most suitable choices, you can see and feel the slate material you are considering, and the consultation to provide these services is usually free.

Once you have been presented with your slate choices, the slate roofer, or slate tile supplier, can provide pictures of homes completed with the slate tiles you are considering. Even better, you may be able to see the home or homes which is far better than a picture. We would recommend viewing the oldest example so you can see for yourself how well the slate tiles have aged.

If you’ll permit us a self promotional boast, Abardeen has been slating roofs since 1980 and we’ll gladly show off our earliest work because we’re quite proud of it.

This ought to be your instinct but we’ll mention the importance of a written guarantee anyway. Ours is 50 years on the workmanship and you can get up to a 100 year warranty on our favorite and best slate tiles. By contrast, we’ve seen slate roofs fail in as little as 3-4 years so that warranty is really, really important!

Follow these guidelines and you’ll discover your choices in color, texture, quality, longevity, and everything else you need to make your home and slate roof aesthetically beautiful and stay that way.