Firstly let’s understand what Roof Tops are.

Rooftops are a part of architectural structure or building envelope. It is a covering on the upper most part of building that provides protection from birds and mainly weather like rains and sun heat.

There are various types of material used as rooftops. The type of material used for roof top usually depends on the purpose of the building. In India, mainly in heavy rainfall cities, a roof is used primarily to protect against rain. You may have seen rooftops used in balconies and veranda’s in many of the buildings.

Rooftops are not limited for residential purpose only. They are used in garden conservatory too, to protectplants from cold, wind and rains.

Different types of Material for Roof Tops

For residential purpose, roof tops are either made of Aluminum sheets, GI sheets and sometimes other local material sheets too.

We always suggest out clients and all home owners to have GI i.e. galvanized Iron sheets as rooftops be it for windows, balconies or verandahs. Galvanized iron are iron sheets that undergo a process called Galvanization as name suggests. Galvanization is a process of applying zinc – a protective layer to steel or iron to prevent rusting. Galvanizing protects iron or steel in 2 ways-

i. It forms anti-rust coating, thus prevents corrosive substances from reaching delicate parts of iron and
ii. Zinc serves as a sacrificial anode. Here even if the coating is scratched, the exposed iron will still be protected by remaining zinc.

Advantage of having GI sheet rooftop over Aluminum sheet

As I said earlier GI sheet are many times used for window roof tops too. For windows the advantage is that, the safety grill can easily be drilled to thick GI sheet. Whereas with aluminum sheet rooftops, the grills will be fixed with nut-bolt since drilling is impossible. This will allow rain water to enter in house, damaging the wall. During rains, having aluminum sheet rooftop can be annoying because of the sound of rain water that fall on it. Lastly aluminum sheets available for rooftops are quite thin and therefore can easily break for some heavy thing fallen over it.

With GI sheets all above mentioned short comings of aluminum sheet for rooftops are surpassed. Home owners shall not worry for rain water entering their homes or be annoyed for any rain water sound. Also GI sheets are more strong and durable product.

Costwise there’s not much of a difference between GI rooftop sheet and Aluminum rooftop sheets.