Copper and zinc are both lifetime roofing metals, and we install both the same way: double-lock standing seam, each panel folded together twice by hand, with no exposed fasteners. Copper is the classic — it goes on bright, weathers to brown, and settles into the green patina, with a life of 100 years or more. Zinc is the quiet modern metal: it starts bright and settles to a soft matte gray that sits easy against trees, stone, and water.
How each one weathers
Copper's color journey is the point for most clients: bright metal, then brown, then — over 10 to 20 years depending on climate — the green patina that makes old buildings look inevitable. It never rusts, and it never needs paint.
Zinc makes a shorter journey. It goes on bright and, over its first seasons, settles to a soft matte gray. No shine asking for attention. At Lake Rabun, against the trees and the water, it was the right voice for the house.
The seam is not the difference
Both metals leave our hands with the same joint: a double-lock standing seam, a technique hundreds of years old. The panels are folded together twice, by hand — nothing exposed to back out, snap loose, or start a leak in twenty years. We are the only installer in the Southeast who still does it. Whichever metal you choose, that is the joint it deserves.
Where each belongs
Copper belongs to tradition: historic buildings, churches, domes, built-in gutters, finials, and ornamental work — the details sheet-metal craft exists for. Our double-lock seamed lead-coated copper dome in Buford is copper doing what only copper does.
Zinc belongs to the modern line: contemporary architecture, long clean planes, and complicated roofs where the planes cross and the seams have to run true through every transition. That is the Lake Rabun roof.
So how long does zinc last?
Ask how long copper lasts and the answer is published: 100 years or more, with copper roofs in Europe centuries old. Ask the same of zinc and we give the answer we gave at Lake Rabun: zinc is a roof you install once and hand to the next owner. It is a lifetime metal, seamed to a lifetime standard. Choose between them on the building's character — not on a shortcut either way.
What about cost?
Both are premium metals, and we won't publish a figure for either: the cost moves with the metal market and depends on the building — its size, its details, how much custom fabrication the roof demands. Every metal job we do is fabricated and quoted straight, line by line. What we can tell you before any number: with a life measured in generations and almost no maintenance, either metal is the last roof the building should need.
— Gary Shank