Architectural Tray Roofing Tauranga

What Tray Roofing Actually Is

A tray roof is made of wide flat pans separated by raised seams. There are no exposed fixings anywhere on the field of the roof - each tray clips or folds into the next over concealed clips, which is why it is also called secret-fix. The result is a long, clean, uninterrupted plane broken only by the shadow lines of the seams.

Two things follow from that, and they are the reasons architects specify it. Visually, you get a roof with no screw heads and no ribbed profile, which reads as a single surface - particularly effective on the low mono-pitch and skillion designs that dominate contemporary New Zealand architecture. Technically, having no penetrations through the weather surface in the field of the roof removes the most common leak path a metal roof has.

Materials

• Pre-painted steel. The most common and most affordable option, in the same colour ranges as longrun. Coastal grading applies here exactly as it does to any steel roof.
• Aluminium. Naturally corrosion resistant, which makes it a strong choice close to the water at Mount Maunganui, Papamoa or Waihi Beach. Lighter than steel and it will not rust.
• Zinc. Develops a self-healing patina over time and has a very long life. A specifier's material, with a soft grey-blue character that looks like nothing else.
• Copper. Starts bright, weathers through brown to a green patina over decades. The photograph at the top of this page is a copper tray roof we installed. It is the most expensive option and there is nothing else that looks like it.

Matching Wall Cladding

Most tray roofs we install come with tray or interlocking cladding on at least part of the building - a gable end, an entry, a chimney form, or the whole façade. Having one trade do both is worth more than it sounds, because the roof-to-wall junction is where two separate contractors historically point at each other. When we do the roof and the cladding, that detail is unambiguously ours.

Why Tray Costs More

It is not the material, or not mostly. Tray roofing is slower and more skilled work. Trays are typically narrower than longrun sheets, so there are more of them per square metre. Every seam is formed rather than simply lapped. Ends, upstands and terminations are folded rather than covered with a flashing. Curved and tapered work - like the roof in the photograph above - is fabricated to suit.

The upside is a roof that is both the best-looking and, detail for detail, the most watertight metal roof you can put on a house. If you are building something designed and the roof is a visible part of that design, it is usually the right call.

Working With Architects and Designers

We are used to working from an architect's details and to being brought into the conversation early, which on a tray roof genuinely matters - things like minimum pitch, expansion allowance on long runs, and how the roof terminates at a parapet or a gutter are much cheaper to resolve on paper than on site. Send us the drawings and we will come back with a price and with any questions the details raise.

See also longrun metal roofing for the conventional profiled alternative, and new roofs for how we fit into a build programme.