Design Advantages & Key Benefits
One of the real beauties of COLORBOND® steel is the flexibility and freedom it gives you to design a home that suits your tastes, lifestyle and budget.
In short, a home that's uniquely you.
Choosing a profile
As well as coming in a wide range of designer colours, roofing made from COLORBOND® steel is available in a range of profiles (or shapes).
The profile is imparted onto steel during a process called rollforming. This process is carried out by specialist roofing manufacturers, known in the building trade as rollformers.
The most familiar profile, or shape, is corrugated. Although it's been around since the 19th century, corrugated is just as popular today, giving contemporary homes a distinctly Australian look and feel.
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Other profiles may be flatter, or more angular
The important thing to remember is that the many rollformers who turn COLORBOND® steel into roofing sheets offer their own profiles, each with different names, qualities and recommended applications. Not all profiles may suit your particular roof design.
You can see many of the different profiles on the SteelSelect™ website
To learn more, it's best to talk to your nearest supplier
Remember, too, to insist on genuine COLORBOND® steel from BlueScope Steel - not a cheap, inferior imitation.
You can find your closest supplier here.
Designing your roof
When it comes to designing a roof, you'll find COLORBOND® steel suits virtually any design - and there's plenty to choose from.
The range of straight roof styles include:
- Pitched. This is any roof comprising sloping sections that meet at a peak in the middle of the structure. Most traditional roofs are pitched. View photo
- Hipped. This is another type of pitched roof that has more than two sections that meet each other at 'hips'. An example of a hipped roof is an L-shaped roof. View photo
- Skillion. A skillion roof is a single pitched roof - that is, there's no ridge in the middle where two sections meet. Skillion roofs can be made at a very shallow angle, as low as one degree to the horizontal, which can help to get your plans through council. View photo
Many contemporary home designs make full use of steel's incredible curving ability.
Curved roof styles include:
- Cranked: A continuous roof line with a curve on top instead of a ridge where the two sections of a pitched roof would otherwise meet. View Photo
- Old gothic: An old gothic roof makes use of both a concave and convex curve in the one steel sheet. The result is a gentle S shape. View Photo
- Convex: This roof has a simple convex shape (similar to a U), although the degree of the curve itself can make it far from simple. View Photo
Curving can be done in one of two ways. With sprung curved roofs (spring curving), the steel is brought on site in flat sheets and the free-form curve created by attaching it to the roof rafters. This method is most suitable for roofs that have a gentle curve.
Trying to free-form a more acute curve will make the metal buckle. For roofswith these acute curves the flat sheets are pre-curved in the factory on a special rollforming machine, according to the exact specifications of the required curve. The curved steel sheets used for bullnosed verandahs are also formed in this way.
Several steel roofing suppliers have produced comprehensive guides to installation of curved roofs covering various aspects of installation and design principles. There are also other steel roofing profiles, than the standard corrugated shape, which have different curving abilities - steel roofing suppliers will also be able to assist in providing this information.
