Practical hints to builders and those contemplating building / Facts worth considering relating to foundation, cellar, kitchen, chimney, cistern, brick-work, mortar, heating, ventilation, the roof, and many items of interest to builders.

by National Sheet Metal Roofing Co.

TO ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS.

There is no detail of house building more important than the roof. Upon it depends to a great degree the durability and preservation of the whole structure. The number of good houses with mottled ceilings and cracked plastering, to be seen all over the country, are reminders of the necessity of securing the best material and faultless construction for this important part of your dwelling.

The advantages we claim for our Tin Shingle, over the ordinary mode of applying sheet metal for roofing purposes, consists in its Superior Strength, Freedom from Wrinkles and Cracking, (which cannot at all times be prevented where sheet metal is put on in continuous sheets); and in being the Most Ornamental and Durable of all sheet metal roof coverings. Now, in answer to this last assertion you may say, How can this be? Is not the same quality of tin as durable when applied in one form as another? We answer, By no means. The writer—and we presume the reader—has seen tin roofs worked, and walked over in the necessary finishing up, to such an extent as to seriously damage the roof. The Tin Roofers’ mallets, seamers, tongs, and sliding over the roof, do more real damage to the surface of tin plate than several years’ wear. We entirely overcome this difficulty, as no part of the exposed surface of our Tin Shingles are struck with a mallet or hammer in applying them. Again, where metal plates are put together in continuous sheets, moisture, which condenses underneath for want of ventilation, settles in the cross-seams and causes decay, and the ordinary metal roof when removed invariably shows this to be the case, while the other part of the plate shows no perceptible wear. Our form of metal roofing has no cross-seams, and has sufficient ventilation to prevent the condensation of moisture underneath, making it by many years the most durable form of metal roofing ever offered to the American people.

Our object is to furnish the building public with a better form of roofing material, attractive in appearance, without the objections of the heavy slate, the clumsy shingle, or the plain ribbed metal roof; and at a price that claims the attention of Architects and Builders of the whole country.

THE NATIONAL SHEET METAL ROOFING CO.,
510 to 520 East Twentieth St.,
New York City.