Roofing Shingle Colors – Visualize For Your Home

Roofing shingle color choices can be tough to make. Before you meet with a trusted roofing professional, take a look at what roofing shingle color looks best on your home by trying our Home Visualizer Tool.

Your roof is an important part of the overall appearance and protection of your home. Knowing how to choose the right color of roofing shingles will help ensure that you make a choice that will suit your home’s appearance. Your roof can last a long time so you certainly don’t want to be stuck with the wrong color. Here are our tips to help you choose the right shingle color for your home.

Consider Your Climate:

Did you know that the color of roofing shingles you put on your home can affect your energy bills? As it turns out, your roof color can impact the temperature in your attic by 20 to 40 degrees, which can make quite a difference when it comes to heating and cooling your home. Lighter shingles reflect the sunlight and help keep the temperature of your home cool while darker shingles absorb heat and will help your home stay warm in the colder months.

Coordinate Your Roof With the Other Elements on Your Home:

Whether your home is brick, vinyl sided, stone or stucco, you should coordinate the colors to match the existing material. For a more traditional look, white, grey and blue homes look best with dark grey or black shingles. Brown, cream and tan colored homes look best with brown or a mix of cream and brown roofing shingles. For more non-traditional siding colors such as green, red or yellow, there is more flexibility. Most, if not all, roofing colors will coordinate well with non-traditional siding colors. Don’t forget to take color samples of the exterior of your home with you when shopping for roofing shingle colors. Bring a high quality picture of the color of your siding or a paint sample if you can to ensure you are choosing the right color.

Choose a Trendy or Traditional Direction:

Neutral colors are a safe bet when it comes to choosing the right roofing color for your home. Tan, cream, black and grey are among the neutral colors, which can help ensure good resale value as they aren’t as polarizing. Take it a step further with styles that have stood the test of time and choose roofing that is blended to look like natural materials such as slate or wood shake.

For a trendier look, use color combinations such as various tones of browns or a mixture of black and grey. You should also consider which roofing colors would give your home the right illusion. Lighter roofing colors make homes appear larger than they are while darker roofing colors give homes a smaller appearance.

Authored by Herb Schoen, President & CEO of Garfield 12323, The Home Corporation