A roof valley handles more water than any other part of the roof, and its metal wears out long before the slate or tile does. Here's what replacing it the right way involves.

When a slate roof leaks, the slate is rarely the problem. More often it's the flashing where the roof meets a chimney, a wall, or a window. Here's how proper copper flashing works.

When we’re called to evaluate a slate roof, the slate itself is rarely the biggest problem. It’s the repairs. Here’s what we find when caulk, tar, and shortcuts are used on slate, and why doing it right the first time matters.

Looking down from the Eiffel Tower, one green spire stands out above the gray roofs of Paris. Here is what that copper patina, the slate roof below it, and the zinc rooftops around it can teach us about historic roofs at home.

Spotted from the Eiffel Tower, the gleaming gold dome of Les Invalides is a lead-and-copper roof wrapped in gold leaf—surrounded by a whole city of slate. Here's the roofing story behind it.

In the Place Vendôme, a 44-meter bronze column tells the same story we tell about copper: the green patina isn't decay, it's protection — and a quiet lesson in when to replace historic metal.

Scalloped like the scales of a fish, this centuries-old slate pattern is equal parts beauty and engineering. A close look at fish-scale slate on a Paris turret — and the craft behind it, alive and well on rooftops across the Carolinas and Georgia.

After the opera house's copper dome and the slate roofs of Place Vendôme, I stood before the Petit Palais and looked up again. A slate dome crowning pale stone, finished with metalwork at every ridge and edge, and one of the most beautiful golden gates in all of Paris. It was built for a World's Fair in 1900, and 125 years later it still stops you where you stand.

Standing in Place Vendôme, I was surrounded by natural slate — steep gray roofs studded with dormers, the very "mansard" style named for the family that designed this Paris square.

On a trip to Paris I looked up inside Galeries Lafayette and found a stained-glass sky — a 1912 Art Nouveau dome that proves what crowns a building can be pure art.

The green dome of Paris's Palais Garnier isn't paint or tile — it's copper, wearing 150 years of natural patina. Here's what it teaches us about copper roofing and why it lasts a century or more.

Slate is stone. It doesn't bend. So how does a Paris rooftop roll in a perfect, unbroken curve? One hand-cut piece at a time — and it's been holding for over a century. A closer look at a curved slate mansard near Place Vendôme.

Hand-cut scalloped slate, wrapping around turrets and dormers over a hundred years old — this is a Paris rooftop seen from the terrace of Galeries Lafayette. Join us above Boulevard Haussmann for a roofer's look at the slate, copper, and the extraordinary 1912 stained-glass dome below.

What does a 360-year-old dome in the heart of Paris have to do with your roof in the Carolinas? Everything. During my recent visit to the iconic Institut de France along the Seine River, I found myself standing beneath one of the most breathtaking examples of natural slate roofing in the world — and it completely reaffirmed why slate is the only roofing material that truly stands the test of time. Read on for the full story and what it means for your home.

Châteauneuf-en-Auxois, Burgundy, France

I had barely turned the corner into the village square when I stopped walking. Not because of the medieval castle looming on the hilltop — but because of a roof.

For travelers drawn to architecture and the bones of old buildings, Châteauneuf is not just a pretty village. It is a living classroom. The roofline of this ivy-draped manor house tells a five-hundred-year story in terracotta and clay — from the steep pitch designed to shed Burgundy's heavy winter snow, to the hand-formed tiles whose warm orange glow comes not from paint or glaze, but from iron-rich local clay fired the same way it has been for centuries.

This is a closer look at one of France's most beautifully preserved medieval villages — and the roof that stopped me in my tracks.

Right in the heart of Beaune, Burgundy, a corner building stopped me completely — its upper roofline crowned with a polychrome diamond-patterned tile roof in the classic Burgundian style, sitting proudly above a slate mansard below. Two historic roofing materials. One stunning building. Here's what it means for your historic home.

The Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune in Burgundy, France is home to one of the most breathtaking roofs in the world — a 600-year-old polychrome glazed tile masterpiece in gold, black, green, and red. Here's what standing beneath it taught us about what historic roofing truly means.