If you are looking to grab attention and be the talk of your neighborhood, a slate roof in your North Shore neighborhood is the way to go. Slate is a metamorphic rock that is composed of clay or volcanic ash. This rock used to be a shale sedimentary rock that was transformed over millions of years of pressure beneath the earth’s surface. Thus, slate is millions of years old. Since it is composed of a wide variety of different types of shale rock, it can be lots of beautiful colors, none of which are quite the same. Slate is never artificially colored, and the color of the slate depends on where it was mined. Some types of slate never lose their color, while other types can change color over time.

Since slate is a stone, you can consider them to have a lifetime guarantee, meaning they will most likely outlive you. Slate roofs, as long as they are well-maintained and taken care of, will last at least 75 years and many will last well over 100 years. You don’t ever want to put anything on your slate roof either, such as sealant or paint, that can actually do harm to your roof rather than protect it. If you don’t want to replace your roof every 20 years, then consider a slate roof instead.

Slate, being a rock made by nature, is 100% recyclable, meaning that if you ever decide to replace your slate roof, all of it can be reused and repurposed elsewhere. In fact, if you didn’t use the slate for your roof, Mother Nature would break it down once it was exposed anyway. Almost all asphalt roofing materials end up in landfills, and being that asphalt is the most popular roofing material and needs to be replaced every 20 years, that’s a lot. With slate and tile roofs, you won’t be adding to that volume ever.