Asphalt or Metal? An Honest Comparison for Pacific Northwest Homes
Metal costs two to three times more and lasts two to three times longer. Whether that is a good trade comes down to one question most sales pitches skip.
There is a lot of content online arguing that metal roofing is obviously better. Most of it is written by companies that only sell metal roofing.
We install both. Here is the honest version.
The trade in one line
Metal costs roughly two to three times more up front and lasts roughly two to three times longer. Nearly everything else is a detail hanging off that.
Which means the real question is not “which is better.” It is: how long are you staying in this house?
If you are staying twenty-five years, metal can genuinely be the cheaper roof — you buy one instead of two. If there is a realistic chance you sell inside ten, you will not recover the premium, because buyers do not price a roof by its remaining life.
Where metal genuinely wins here
Moss. This is the Pacific Northwest advantage nobody mentions enough. Moss struggles to get a grip on a smooth metal surface, and it does not lift a seam the way it lifts a shingle edge. On a heavily shaded lot in Fall City or Duvall, where moss is a permanent condition to manage, that is worth real money over the life of the roof.
Low-slope sections. Below a certain pitch, shingles cannot be warrantied. Metal works on shallower slopes.
Long simple runs. Standing seam looks its best on a big uninterrupted plane. On a cut-up roof with six dormers, much of the aesthetic benefit is lost and the cost of all that flashing goes up.
Outbuildings. On a shop, barn or detached garage — common on acreage in Arlington or Mount Vernon — metal is often the obvious answer. Long runs, appearance matters less, life matters more.
Where asphalt genuinely wins
Cost, obviously. Most of our replacements land between $12,000 and $20,000. Metal sits well above that.
Complexity. Every valley, dormer and penetration on a metal roof is a fabricated detail. Asphalt absorbs complicated rooflines far more cheaply.
The warranty. This is the one people miss. Our three-way cover — CertainTeed on the shingles for 50 years, our workmanship for 30, and CertainTeed backing our installation alongside us for the first 15 — is built around a complete CertainTeed shingle system. A metal roof carries our own workmanship warranty but not the CertainTeed layers, because those are specific to their shingle products.
Future changes. Cutting a skylight or a vent into a shingle roof is routine. Into standing seam it is a considerably bigger job.
Two myths worth retiring
“Metal roofs are loud in the rain.” Not on a house. The noise people remember is metal over open framing — a barn, a carport, a shed. On a house there is solid decking, underlayment, an attic and insulation between you and the metal. It is not meaningfully louder than asphalt.
“Metal attracts lightning.” It does not. Metal is non-combustible, which if anything makes it a safer surface in the event of a strike.
What about the third option?
If part of your roof is genuinely flat — a garage, an addition, a modern box section — neither answer applies to that part. Shingles need slope to shed water and there is not any, so a low-slope section wants a continuous welded membrane instead.
Plenty of Puget Sound houses are mostly pitched with one flat section, and the transition between the two systems is where those roofs almost always fail.
How we actually handle this at the estimate
We give you both numbers.
Not a metal number designed to make asphalt look reasonable, and not an asphalt number with metal mentioned as an afterthought. Two real prices for your actual roof, with the lifespan difference stated plainly, and then it is your decision and your timeline.
If someone is pushing hard toward one material before they have asked how long you plan to stay in the house, they are selling a product rather than solving your problem.
Book a free inspection and we will price both.
Written by the Brixton & Windsor Roofing crew. We are a family owned, CertainTeed ShingleMaster™ PRO roofing company in Bothell, and Daniel does every estimate himself. If something here applies to your roof and you want a second opinion on it, the inspection is free.
