COLORBOND® COOLMAX® Steel Roofing

COLORBOND® Coolmax®Testimonial by Maddie & Mark

“We’re Maddie & Mark and we’d like to share with you how we came to choose Ultimate Roofing to re-roof our property.

We purchased a 1960s double brick home in Adelaide’s west, with the original terracotta tiled roof. We knew from the property inspection that the bedding for the capping needed to be repaired and that a quick online search suggested that due to the age of the tiles they were also more than likely “fretting”, that is turning into powder – much like steel and rust.

This led us to considering the investment of a re-roof, with the idea that we wanted to live in this home for a long time, we wanted to know how roof technology had progressed after almost 60 years and how that would be of use to us. 

Following a week of 40 degree weather that was extremely uncomfortable, googling showed that there were ceramic paints available to passively reduce the temperature of your roof. This sounded great except that the existing roof was compromised and needed replacement. Further to this, there was no sarking under the original tiles, we wanted some kind of membrane to prevent ambient thermal transfer where possible to keep the temperature as comfortable as possible, along with being another barrier for moisture/insects.

An online search showed that Colorbond steel has “Thermatech” technology embedded to reflect heat, which we thought would stop heat from accumulating in the roof space and then soaking into the walls of our home.

Further searching, we found that Colorbond “Coolmax” had a higher SRI along with other formulations to reduce heat absorption, perfect we thought, except it was a commercial product and other roofing companies we spoke with didn’t want to entertain us with our request. There was an article online we found from around 2013 (11 years prior) that a home had used Coolmax, we were onto something! It would seem in the time since the product launched to market, Colorbond came out with Dover White as the residential equivalent – although once in a lifetime job, let’s try pushing our luck…

After calling multiple roof companies local to us, found via google maps, it was clear that Ultimate Roofing not only knew what Colorbond Coolmax was, they had a plan on how they could make it work for our home. We later learnt during installation that it’s only available in 5000+ m² quantities, which as we were just under 200, that Ultimate Roofing had to find a supplier that had ordered enough for a school, hospital or shopping centre and tack us on at the end, that explained why other roofers had never heard of it or if they had said it was too hard and we should consider alternatives.

After a few calls to various roofers, we ended up speaking with Jason and Nikki. They were thorough in answering all of our questions about roofing, roof-plumbing and insulation for our home and garage. They were upfront about challenges and improvements based on their experience with other customers. Once we had decided on Coolmax,, Jason visited our property with large samples of Dover White, Surfmist and Coolmax (in White Haven) to ensure we were happy with the colour and how it would look against the front of our house before accepting a deposit.

Once we had agreed and paid the deposit, Jason was able to have the installation team booked in before the start of winter and before long the hard effort of Jason’s roofing team (Harry, Jason and Freddy) was realised. The tons of tiles came off and was quickly replaced by the Coolmax sheeting and Dover White capping, with Kingspan Air-Cell Insulbreak 90 installed underneath as a 3-in-1 insulation, vapor and thermal break layer. This insulation took extra effort to install as purlins had to be removed for the appropriate sag as per manufacturer’s instructions, other roofers said they couldn’t be bothered and that they only install the “old school” roofing blankets.

Since completing the reroof project with Ultimate Roofing we’ve achieved 4 things.

Our home has better insulation, keeping the internal temperatures stabilised (which is instantly noticeable moving between inside and outside). We’ve since struggled to hear outside traffic noise (we’re approx 100m from a main arterial road in Adelaide). Overall temperature has been reduced, I’m hoping the Ultimate Roofing team reaches out when summer hits for an update [It hasn’t been 30°C+ since the roof was installed late April 2024 at the time of writing]. Lastly, we have peace of mind that our quality of life has been greatly improved due to this reroof project, through honest discussions with Jason and his team.

In closing we’d like to share a few closing thoughts about our journey with Ultimate Roofing; The communication from Jason and Nikki was excellent, easy to understand with all dates and quotes clearly explained and well documented – we understood and appreciated the value that we were paying for, especially as it’s a “Once in a lifetime” job. The professionalism from the installation team; Harrison, Jason and Freddy, they showed up on time, care was taken throughout the install and repairing any defects found in the existing roof. We’re proud of our choice to have used Ultimate Roofing to install our (near) one of a kind roof and would happily recommend the team to anyone else in need of assistance with their roof.”