What Does a Metal Shake Roof Cost in Oregon?

What does a metal shake roof cost in Oregon?

An aluminum shake roof in Oregon is a premium roof, and it is priced like one. It costs more than architectural asphalt and, on most houses, as much as or more than a new real cedar shake roof on the day it goes on. Nobody can give you a per-square-foot number that holds from a Lake Oswego lakefront lot to a Sandy foothills acreage, because the same shake panel goes on roofs that differ by a factor of three in labor. The honest answer is a measured quote for your roof, and anyone quoting off a satellite image before they have walked it is guessing. What the premium buys is a roof that stays on for 50 or more years with a lifetime material warranty, in a state where cedar shake is the roof people grew up with. We have 19 aluminum roofs on record in Lake Oswego since 1999, and the reason that town shows up on the list is that it was built out during the decades when hand-split cedar was the default on anything with a view. Those roofs are now on their second or third cedar cycle, and the owners are doing the arithmetic on whether to buy the cycle again.

Why does real cedar shake fail early west of the Cascades?

Western red cedar is a Northwest tree, and cedar shake is the roof it produced. The irony is that the climate that grows the tree is the climate that rots the roof. Multnomah and Clackamas counties average about 58 inches of rain a year, most of it between October and May, and a north-facing slope in Southwest Portland or Milwaukie does not fully dry out for seven months. Cedar is wood. Wet wood grows moss, and moss on cedar is worse than moss on asphalt because the roots feed on the shake itself rather than just wedging between granules. Once the butt edges soften and cup, the roof sheds water badly, the felt underneath gets wet, and the sheathing follows. That is why a cedar shake roof that might run 30 years in a dry climate typically gives 15 to 25 years in the Willamette Valley, less on a shaded lot under Douglas fir. Owners spend on pressure washing and treatment every few seasons to stretch it, and each wash strips more of the surface. Benton County, at 60 inches, and Lane County, at 56 inches with 31 inches of snow, are no kinder to the cedar roofs around Corvallis and the Eugene hills. The other problem is fire. Oregon's SB 762 wildfire hazard map and the home-hardening rules that follow it reach the wildland edge on the east and south sides of the valley and up the Cascade foothills. Untreated cedar shake is the roofing an ember wants to find. An aluminum shake roof can be installed as a Class A fire-rated assembly, which is the rating a hardening review looks for, without the weight of concrete tile.

What drives an aluminum shake quote in Oregon?

Roof size is the largest factor and it is measured in squares, meaning 100 square feet of roof surface, not floor area. A 2,000-square-foot foursquare in Northeast Portland with a steep hip roof and deep overhangs can carry more roof than a 2,800-square-foot ranch in Beaverton. Pitch is the second factor. Cedar was usually put on steep roofs because steep roofs shed water better, so shake neighborhoods in Lake Oswego, West Linn, and the Happy Valley slopes tend to be steep by default, and steep means staging, tie-offs, and slower work. Complexity is the third. Every valley, hip, dormer, chimney, and skylight is hand-cut aluminum and custom flashing, and the 1970s and 1980s cedar-era houses on the foothills lots are full of them. A simple gable in Molalla and a cut-up contemporary in the Portland West Hills can have the same square count and very different labor. Profile and color are smaller line items but real ones. The shake and cedar shingle profiles cost differently, and the Alunar PVDF finish comes in CRRC-rated colors, which matter more in Wasco County at 18 inches of rain and long summer sun than they do in Astoria. The last factor is labor itself. Crews trained on interlocking aluminum are not as rare as slaters or copper craftsmen in Oregon, but they are not framing crews either, and the quote reflects a crew that will still be here when the warranty is called on.

What does replacing a cedar shake roof with metal involve?

A cedar roof almost never gets covered over. The surface is too irregular to lay a flat panel across, so the shakes come off, and the tear-off is the part of a cedar replacement that surprises Oregon homeowners. Old shakes were laid on spaced boards, called skip sheathing, so the wood could breathe from below. Once the shakes are gone you are looking at gaps between one-by-fours, and an aluminum shake cannot fasten to air. The deck has to be filled or overlaid with new solid sheathing, and that plywood and the labor to lay it is a line on the bid that an asphalt-to-metal job does not have. The second surprise is what is under the shakes. Some valley and foothills roofs got a layer of asphalt shingle over the cedar in the 1990s, and some had rot in the skip sheathing at the eaves and valleys that nobody could see. The crew finds it on day one, and a good bid carries a per-sheet price for deck replacement so there is no argument later. A documented example: in April 2026 a 34-square Deep Charcoal cedar shingle profile went on in Cloverdale, in Tillamook County, where the roof sees 81 inches of rain and gusts to 85 miles per hour off the Pacific. Aluminum was the right metal there because it contains no iron and cannot rust in salt air, and the cedar shingle profile kept the look the house was built with. The job was a full tear-off and re-deck, which is the normal sequence, not the exception, for a coastal cedar roof.

Is an aluminum shake roof worth the cost in Oregon?

Run it over the life of the house instead of the day of the install. A cedar roof in the Willamette Valley is bought two or three times in the span one aluminum roof covers, and each cedar cycle comes with the wash-and-treat bills between replacements. An asphalt roof is bought three or four times. The aluminum shake goes on once, carries a lifetime material warranty to the original owner that transfers once to the next buyer, and needs the gutters cleaned and not much else. It will not grow moss, because there is nothing in it for moss to root into, which on a shaded north slope in Portland is the entire maintenance argument. It is not weightless as a decision. Aluminum can dent under a dropped tool or a large hailstone, although the panels are UL 2218 Class 4 impact rated and hail is warranted to inch-and-a-half stones. Some carriers offer an impact-resistant or fire-safe discount for that rating, but ask your carrier rather than assuming it. Up in the Gorge and on the Mt. Hood side, where Hood River County sees 76 inches of snow and 55 freeze-thaw days, the roof has to be detailed for snow retention and ice at the eaves, and that adds to the bid. The short version for an Oregon homeowner: an aluminum shake roof costs more than the cedar it replaces on the day it is installed, the tear-off and re-deck are real costs that belong on the bid, and the roof then stops being a recurring expense for as long as you own the house. Get it measured, get the deck condition and the fire class in writing, and compare the number against the next two cedar roofs rather than against one.

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