Why Roof Colors Look Different Throughout the Day

Tile color is one of those things people don't think about until the roof is already on the house. Then they pull in the driveway at 4pm and the color looks completely different than what they picked out in the morning. That's not a mistake, that's just how tile works in the Arizona sun.

The Sun Changes Everything

Concrete and clay tile aren't a single flat color. A real tile blend has three, four, sometimes five different tones baked into each piece. When you look at a pallet sitting in the shade, you see all those tones at once and the roof reads as one color. When you put it up on a house and the sun hits it at an angle, every one of those tones lights up differently.

Early morning, the light is soft and warm, so the lighter tones in the blend pop. The roof looks brighter, almost golden. Midday, the sun is straight overhead and you're looking at the truest version of the color, but it can also wash out the depth a little. Late afternoon, when the sun drops low and rakes across the tile, you see the most contrast you'll ever see on that roof. Shadows show up in the curves, the darker tones come forward, and the whole roof feels deeper.

Look at any tile roof straight into the sun versus with the sun behind you. It almost looks like two different houses.

Natural Cement Beats Tinted Concrete

Here's where the choice of tile actually matters. You can buy concrete tile that's tinted, meaning the color is mixed into the concrete itself, or you can buy tile where the color is built up on top of a natural cement base.

We use the natural cement base. The reason is simple, the color sits on top of a neutral foundation, so when the sun hits it the tones stay clean and the variation shows the way it's supposed to. Tinted concrete tends to flatten out. The base color of the concrete fights with the surface color and everything reads muddier, especially as the tile ages and the surface wears a little.

With a natural cement tile, you get the full range. The blend looks alive. You see the warm and the cool tones at different times of day, and the roof never looks the same twice.

What This Means When You're Picking a Color

Don't pick tile color off a small sample board in a showroom under fluorescent lights. Always ask to see a few full tiles, take them outside, and look at them in real sunlight at different times of day. If you can, drive by a house that already has the color you're considering. Look at it in the morning, then go back at sunset. That's the real test.

The roof you're putting on is going to be there for 50 years. The 20 minutes it takes to see the color in the light it'll actually live in is worth it.

If you want help picking a tile that'll look right on your house, call us. We'll bring real samples out and show you what they look like on your street, at your time of day.