Colorbond Roof

shane3340 · Jun 03, 2020 3:36 pm

Hello All,

Just to be clear, I am aware about 'thermal expansion' etc with colorbond roofs.

In my last house, in the same suburb and same colorbond roof, we would occassionally get a few bangs/pops throughout the day, moreso on a hot day.

In our new house, theres popping noises coming from every area of the roof, almost all day. Hot, cold, doesn't matter. Even at 2am. Sometimes it sounds like someone is running across the roof, other times it is like a rock being thrown at it. It isn't trees or animals.

Is this a problem with installation? Anything I can point to when talking to the roofing people who will 100% dismiss it and tell me it is normal?

We have a timber frame, roof is attached to metal beam things which are attached to the frame. We don't have sarking, but didn't in our old house either.

TIA

anthonysmythe100 · Jun 03, 2020 3:58 pm

We had the same issue, it sounded like continuous gun shots. The issue according to an expert was related to the darker colour of our roof which was Basalt. Lighter coloured roofs had less of these popping noise problems. We were advised by an expert to fix it by widening the roof fastener holes. We had a roof plumber which did this and it significantly lessened the noise. At present, if the weather went from extreme cold and then to hot in one day, it will creak (rather than pop) for a couple of hours and then silence. If the gun shot noise continued, the expert suggested painting the roof white. Hope this helps.

shane3340 · Aug 17, 2020 11:37 am

anthonysmythe100

We had the same issue, it sounded like continuous gun shots. The issue according to an expert was related to the darker colour of our roof which was Basalt. Lighter coloured roofs had less of these popping noise problems. We were advised by an expert to fix it by widening the roof fastener holes. We had a roof plumber which did this and it significantly lessened the noise. At present, if the weather went from extreme cold and then to hot in one day, it will creak (rather than pop) for a couple of hours and then silence. If the gun shot noise continued, the expert suggested painting the roof white. Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Roofing people came back and couldn't figure it out but told us the color shouldn't make a difference.
I've attached some audio of what we can hear within our house all day, all night in the hope someone knows what to look for....

https://advancemm.com/Roof.mp3

Hussain sahara · Aug 17, 2020 6:44 pm

shane3340

anthonysmythe100

We had the same issue, it sounded like continuous gun shots. The issue according to an expert was related to the darker colour of our roof which was Basalt. Lighter coloured roofs had less of these popping noise problems. We were advised by an expert to fix it by widening the roof fastener holes. We had a roof plumber which did this and it significantly lessened the noise. At present, if the weather went from extreme cold and then to hot in one day, it will creak (rather than pop) for a couple of hours and then silence. If the gun shot noise continued, the expert suggested painting the roof white. Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Roofing people came back and couldn't figure it out but told us the color shouldn't make a difference.
I've attached some audio of what we can hear within our house all day, all night in the hope someone knows what to look for....

https://advancemm.com/Roof.mp3

Hello guys we are building new house with colorbond roof Surfmist colour, there was lot of reviews about colorbond roof and people complained about noise when its raining.
Do you have this noise issue only when weather is bad or every time? Does it really worth going with colorbond or to look for other option?

Sparkyf · Aug 18, 2020 8:48 am

We lived in a kit home with colourbond roof for 9 years (about 20 years ago now), and when the rain was pouring heavily, or especially hailing, the noise was deafening!

I have seen posts about having insulation or sound deadening products under the roofing sheets to reduce the noise.

Now living in two storey house with tiles, and if you are downstairs, you can't tell if it is raining, unless really heavy rain!

It was also on stumps, and when the washing machine was on spin, and slightly unbalanced, the whole house would shake! But that's another story for another day!

Splashers · Aug 18, 2020 9:49 am

We have a dark colour Colorbond roof which is 2 years old and we do not have any issues in regards to popping in winter or summer. Our roof structure is timber with timber batterns for the roof install.
We did get 50mm Anti Con Blanket installed and when it rains hard, we can hardly hear the rain at all we also have R3.5 roof insulation installed

Steve31204 · Oct 08, 2021 8:23 am

Hi Shane,
I know your post was a while ago but wondering if you had any luck resolving it?
We've recently had a colorbond roof installed and have the same issue, banging popping all day and all night. Woken up at 4am the past 5 mornings in a row to a loud bang.

I am aware of thermal expansion etc, but there is no temperature change between midnight and 5am so why the noises..

Bianca74 · Oct 11, 2021 3:55 pm

Hi Shane, Further to Steve's post, I'd also be super keen to hear if it has been resolved and how. I had a listen to the audio and it sounds like our issue (although yours is worse). It's driving us crazy that we have this happening in our custom built new house in Adelaide.

shane3340 · Nov 15, 2021 3:09 pm

Our builder has been insanely useless in diagnosing this issue. If either of you have had any progress, I’d love to know

Bianca74 · Nov 15, 2021 3:42 pm

Our builder has refused to even try diagnosing! So I’m desperate to hear from anyone else who has any possible resolution. I did have a message from someone in the forum suggesting they knew of a solution but when I responded back they have not replied. We are about to go through consumer and business devices arbitration but I want to have some possible solutions to know what to request.

shane3340 · Nov 15, 2021 3:45 pm

My next step was to try and get a framing carpenter and pay them to hop in the roof to have a look.

I contacted a forensic engineer who looked at my plans and listened to my audio and advised me that there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the drawings, but the sound in my roof was definitely not normal.

I think it is something to do with the trusses and how they connect to the frame of the house - if I get any progress I will post here, and would be great if you could too.

Steve31204 · Nov 15, 2021 4:25 pm

Hi Bianca, I’d be interested to hear your audio recordings of the issue. And is your roof making popping/banging/clicking noises during the night?

My roof can make some incredibly loud ‘gun shot’ bangs during the day, and then pops and clicks all through the night when thermal expansion/contraction should be at its lowest. Made a few 8 hour recordings each night and it pops 120+ averaging 1 every 4 minutes while trying to sleep.

shane3340 · Nov 18, 2021 2:34 pm

Hi Steve,
Have you had any progress towards resolving this?

Steve31204 · Nov 18, 2021 2:55 pm

Hi Shane,
Our builder seems to think that because we previously had tiles, all of the weight that has come off the roof is the issue.
The structure is now lighter and is flexing, which is causing the pops and bangs.

He says another builder he spoke to had this problem, and once they installed extra bracing it fixed the problem.

It would explain why we’ve been kept up at night with noises when there is literally no thermal expansion.

But I’m a pessimist so I’m not confident.

Waiting to hear back from some family friends who have a lot of experience working for Bluescope steel.

favebeans · Aug 17, 2022 9:25 pm

This is my third house with a metal roof, first one was an Edwardian, no cracking noises at all, just deafening when it rained, timber frame.
Next house was a new build, steel frame and surf mist colourbond roof, popping in the frame at certain times but not often at night, mostly with temperature change.
3rd house timber frame with colourbond roof, light grey colour, not much cracking during the day, but I often get woken during the night with popping and cracking sounds, it sounds like an animal on the roof, pest control found rats in the roof, they have moved on, but I am desperate to find a solution to this noise, previous owners were oblivious to the sound, I have no idea what to do here?

shane3340 · Sep 19, 2022 9:05 pm

favebeans

This is my third house with a metal roof, first one was an Edwardian, no cracking noises at all, just deafening when it rained, timber frame.
Next house was a new build, steel frame and surf mist colourbond roof, popping in the frame at certain times but not often at night, mostly with temperature change.
3rd house timber frame with colourbond roof, light grey colour, not much cracking during the day, but I often get woken during the night with popping and cracking sounds, it sounds like an animal on the roof, pest control found rats in the roof, they have moved on, but I am desperate to find a solution to this noise, previous owners were oblivious to the sound, I have no idea what to do here?

Our builder threw their arms up and said it wasn’t their issue… have you had any luck?

shane3340 · Sep 19, 2022 9:06 pm

Bianca74

Our builder has refused to even try diagnosing! So I’m desperate to hear from anyone else who has any possible resolution. I did have a message from someone in the forum suggesting they knew of a solution but when I responded back they have not replied. We are about to go through consumer and business devices arbitration but I want to have some possible solutions to know what to request.

Hi Bianca,
Did you have any progress on this issue?

Fredescu · Sep 20, 2022 11:09 am

What kind of anti-con blanket do people have where they can hear the rain and cracking sounds? Many years ago we had our tiled roof replaced with colorbond and an 80mm anticon blanket. We can't even tell when it's raining, even when it's heavy. I'm thinking about building now, and these comments make me wonder if it's worth pushing for the 80mm blanket again as it doesn't appear to be standard.

Bianca74 · Sep 20, 2022 12:17 pm

shane3340

Bianca74

Our builder has refused to even try diagnosing! So I’m desperate to hear from anyone else who has any possible resolution. I did have a message from someone in the forum suggesting they knew of a solution but when I responded back they have not replied. We are about to go through consumer and business devices arbitration but I want to have some possible solutions to know what to request.

Hi Bianca,
Did you have any progress on this issue?

Hi

We had another roof person come over and tell us the many hundred cracks are normal with our zincalume kilp loc roof. Apparently we should not have had this type of roof and so thanks to our designer and builder for not alerting us to this issue, and us having no idea this could even be a problem, we are stuck with the issue unless we want to pay for a new roof. We have an R1.3 roof blanket (50mm) and R5.0 insulation in the ceiling. We can only hear the rain slightly but the roof bangs are still loud. Get a bit of a break over winter with less frequent bangs. We were planning to stay here for quite some time but now thinking to sell in the next year or two and build again taking all of our learnings to improve the next house. Overall not a fun lesson to learn.

Sspence · Nov 09, 2022 6:49 pm

[quote="Steve31204"]Hi Shane,
I know your post was a while ago but wondering if you had any luck resolving it?
We've recently had a colorbond roof installed and have the same issue, banging popping all day and all night. Woken up at 4am the past 5 mornings in a row to a loud bang.

I am aware of thermal expansion etc, but there is no temperature change between midnight and 5am so why the noises..[/quo

Did you find out what the problem was mate?