I believe faux slate was used on the restoration of the buildings in the 4200 block of Spruce Street. I stopped when the work was being done and saw the product, which was quite authentic looking. Anybody know who did this work and/or anymore detail
Check out the web site at http://www.roofingstore.ca/roofing_budgets.htm
There's a table giving the material-only cost of a nice variety of roofing materials. You'll see that artificial slate is quite expensive. For instance, 100 square feet of ordinary shingle roofing runs around $200. Centain-Teed's "slate-look" shingle (I've seen it, and it looks fake -- probably wouldn't be approved by the Historical Commission) runs $425 per 100 sf. Royal Plastic Slate looks pretty good at $720 per 100 sf. Real Vermont Slate is $1,500 per 100 sf. There's a product listed named "Future Shake" which seems to be made out of metal at $550 per sf, which I haven't seen. There are also artificial slate tiles made out of recycled tires impregnated with slate dust that look quite good -- not on this website and I forget the price; I recall it was something like $1,200 per 100 sf.
You can figure that a typical West Philly twin with a slate Mansard roof is about 16 feet along the street and 90 feet deep, and the roof part might be 9 or 10 feet high. So you're looking at 1,000 sf for starters, without considering the tops of the dormers, turrents, etc.
You can figure the priced difference compared to shingles from there. And this would just be the material difference. Most slate products take much longer to install than shingles, so there's a cost premium there, too.
By the way, the website has some prices for terra cotta tile products too, in case this was what was originally on your house (if the Mansard has a curved top-to-bottom profile, this is likely). Also quite expensive.
Al Krigman
