You may have seen the images: The single red-roofed “miracle house” left after Maui’s Lahaina fire burned nearly the rest of the town down. The masses of blue tarps on homes damaged by Florida’s Hurricane Ian months after the destruction.
What these images reflect, albeit from different angles, is one inarguable fact: A resilient roof is key to maintaining home safety in our age of increasing climate catastrophes. How to protect oneself? Historically, it entailed a compromise. Steel roofing is the strongest, most sustainable, and more cost-effective option, but it hasn’t traditionally been recommended for the approximately 40% of Americans who live in coastal counties due to its perceived vulnerability to saltwater corrosion and rusting. Until now.
COASTALUME steel is a steel roofing and siding product made specifically to withstand coastal weather challenges. A collaboration between U. S. Steel and Dupont™, The COASTALUME product combines GALVALUME® coated steel, which incorporates zinc and aluminum to make it more durable, and Tedlar® PVF film, which resists corrosion, UV damage, and cracking. The new product can be used at locations as close as 300 feet from breaking surf, bays, marshes, and saltwater and brackish water sources. And its makers are so confident it’s best-in-class that they will also offer what they believe to be a first of its kind warranty. COASTALUME steel substrate – meaning its core metal – is covered for 25 years, and the film coating is covered for 50.
The COASTALUME steel is arriving at an important time. Atlantic hurricane season starts this month, and unusually warm sea water and the return of the El Nina weather pattern have experts predicting it may be among the most extreme in history.
The COASTALUME product’s advantages excel during hurricane season. Its steel can withstand wind speeds up to 140 mph, which puts it ahead of the competition—particularly asphalt shingles, which can incur damage in 80 to 100 mph winds. COASTALUME steel is also resistant to mold, mildew, and acid rain, and protects against leaks. The COASTALUME product’s advantages also span the seasons. Areas that require hail ratings will benefit from steel incurring less denting, dinging and scratches than most alloys of aluminum. And those in dry and sunny climates will appreciate that the COASTALUME product is fire-retardant. (Again, the latter distinguishes it from homes with asphalt shingles, which can burn due to the oil content in their tar.)
Still, one might ask, do the advantages of COASTALUME steel extend beyond weatherproofing and into, say, design? Indeed. The COASTALUME product comes in more than 30 colors, including wood grains, metallics and stone finishes. (Custom shade-matching is available as well.) Also attractive to homeowners, builders and architects is steel’s sustainability. Steel is the most recycled material in the world – besting aluminum, paper, glass and plastic combined. The COASTALUME steel product may also allow a home’s inhabitants to spend less on cooling systems, due to its absorption of radiant heat. Mark Carlisle, Construction Marketing Manager at U. S. Steel, says solar panels work particularly well in tandem with COASTALUME steel roofing. “If you have an asphalt roof and you install solar panels and after 20 years the asphalt shingles fail” – asphalt roofs typically last a third as long as steel ones—“you need to uninstall all the solar panels (risking damage to the panels), put a new roof on and then reinstall the solar panels. That adds significant cost. But if you have a steel system…the roof may outlive the solar.” Yet another advantage: Tedlar is free of PFAS, the “forever chemicals” found in many roof paint topcoats.
In the end, says Dave Durham, Special Projects Manager – Commercial at U. S. Steel, the most important aspect for coastal customers will likely be the COASTALUME steel product’s safety advantages. Durham has been at the company for three decades and says: “I’m always focused on resilience.” He adds, “There’s too much at stake to accept anything less.”
GALVALUME® is a registered trademark of BIEC International Inc.
