Slate isn’t the only roofing, flooring and cladding material out there. In fact, over the decades, a whole range of alternatives have emerged and tried to take its crown. But natural slate is still the longest-lasting, best-looking, and, over time, by far the most cost-effective.
Interested in using natural slate as your roofing material of choice? Have a browse of our brochure to find out more.
Download the brochureFibre cement tiles cost around £18 per square metre, around £15 per square metre to install, and last approximately 30 years. That equals a cost of £1.10 a year per square metre.
Clay tiles cost around £40 per square metre, £15 to install, and last 40 years, equalling £1.25 per square metre.
At SSQ, our standard natural slates cost £22 per square metre, around £20 per square metre to install, and last 50 years – resulting in a total life-cycle cost of 84p per metre.
But our premium slate delivers the lowest of all – the material itself costs £45 per square metre, the labour costs around £15, and it can last 100 years if not longer. That equals a life-cycle cost of just 60p per metre.
Get a free quoteWhen it comes to embodied carbon – in effect, a material’s carbon footprint – natural slate is the clear winner.
Concrete tiles create 0.19kg of CO² per kilogram.
Clay tiles are worse – they produce 0.43kg per kilo.
Natural slate, however, contains far less – between 0.005-0.054kg per kilo.
Contact usNatural slate requires remarkably little processing. The slate is quarried with low-power electric diamond cutters, and a lot of the splitting is still done by hand. Manufacturing other materials is a lot more industrial. To make clay tiles, for example, kilns are kept burning 24 hours a day, with inevitable impacts on the environment.
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