Would you live in a house that has 4 walls and a fully furnished interior along with furniture but no roof? Most people would answer with a no. The reason behind this is that we attribute the roof as a necessary part of the house. It is an old instinct in humans. We have looked for shelter in any way since our history began and we have been very careful in deciding our shelter. Even after all these years, we have not left the need for our shelter to be perfect. We may have introduced the need for our houses to look good along with providing shelter, but the importance of roofs has not decreased. Take someone near a big city, they might prefer that their roof looks good instead of its strength but for someone who lives in an area with strong winds and rain, a strong roof becomes very important. So how do you make this decision when you are having your house constructed? Knowing even a little about all the possible options will put you in a much better spot than before when the contractor provides you with options.
The better contractors often help the owner make an informed decision about their roofs and so if you want such professionals to guide you through the construction of your house find contractors near you i.e. austin roof contractors, read reviews and decide so that your construction can begin.
One of the most common roof styles that are seen in use these days is the hipped roof style. This can be somewhat compared to the gable style of roofs as they both have inclines reaching the central spine but unlike the gable which has gables or flat sections of wall, the hipped roof has no flat sides but has an incline on all sides. The house can resemble a square-based pyramid in some cases. Moreover, the incline in hipped roofs is much less than the gable roofs. Hipped roofs are often preferred for cottages and bungalows and some buildings can have multi-hipped roofs. Some contractors often mix gable and hipped to give some variety to a building.
Hipped roofs are one of the strongest designs of roof construction. It needs less support than its gable counterpart due to its unique design of self-bracing. It can have a very long life in areas with less extreme weather.
A variant of the hipped roof known as the tented roof is very important in areas that experience strong winds and rain. The tented roof is similar to the hipped roof in all aspects except the steepness of the sides of the roof. This provides the roof much more rigidity in the face of strong winds that can rip off roofs. The change in steepness causes a change in how air behaves when it slams the incline at high speeds and due to the steepness the wind loses a lot of its destructive power meaning that the roof can take more beating than any other type of roof.
A drawback of such a roof is the cost associated with it. It is a complex style and thus the cost of labor is higher than other roofs. Moreover due to there being a lot of slopes being joined with each other at the edges the chances of having leaks due to poor installation can lead to ruin. These roofs also end up restricting a lot of attic space that other roof styles would have allowed you. Moreover, this type of roof also is very hard to maintain.
Hipped roofs can vary in their importance depending on the surroundings of the house where the roof is installed so it is very important that you look around and understand what your surroundings need from your roof.
