Stone Coated Steel Roofs – the Hidden Goldrush

Solar installers consider roofing material when deciding which mounts to purchase for each gig, but many pass on job opportunities due to unfamiliarity with certain types of roofs. A prime example of this is Stone Coated Steel roofs.

Stone Coated Steel roofs are known by a few other names such as stamped metal, metal tile, metal shingle, etc. and they are often overlooked as a viable roofing material for solar installations. Why? Well, we asked installers at the recent Intersolar 2022 trade show in Long Beach CA why they haven’t installed on SCS roofs before and the consensus was clear…

While many didn’t know about the available mounting solutions, most simply didn’t know how they could work with the roofing material and haven’t considered it any further. There’s a goldmine of solar installations out there waiting to be claimed. Adaptable teams could take advantage of the gap in the market and open an entirely new line of income for their businesses if they only looked a bit further than they are currently.

Stone Coated Steel roofs are one of the easiest kinds of roofing material to install on after asphalt shingle, and certainly easier than installing on asphalt shingle with sheet metal flashing.

Roof manufacturers like Decra and Unified Steel (formerly known as Boral) have guides on how to walk on their Stone Coated Steel roofs, it’s rather simple and not too different from walking on Spanish tiles. The key is to step on where the panels are strongest which is always the top/bottom overlaps.

The strongest point remains consistent whether there are battens or not, because that's where the highest concentration of metal is and thus the overlap will be the strongest point for the metal. Walk on top of that overlap and you shouldn't face any issues. If you stick to these guidelines you’ll be walking on Stone Coated Steel roofs in no time!

Once you’re walking the walk you can talk the talk for install time. Identify the locations you’ll mount to, remove the Stone Coated Steel panels, then drill and mount! The beauty of metal panels is that they can be placed firmly over solar mounting hooks without the need for notching or drilling through the roof material. Solar mounting suppliers like QuickBOLT have helpful installation guides for the specialty mounting hardware available online.

So, for the next homeowner you meet that has Stone Coated Steel roofing, say yes to that opportunity and let the money start rolling in.

Check out QuickBOLT's Stone Coated Steel solar mounting solutions on our catalog page here.