Shake Style Appearance: What Aluminum Shake Roofs Cost

$18 to $28 per square foot installed, depending on your house and the options you pick-that’s the realistic range for aluminum shake roofs in Nassau County right now. On a 1,200-square-foot cape, you’re looking at a mid-to-high five-figure investment; bump up to a 2,200-square-foot colonial with hips and dormers, and you’ll creep toward the high five-figure or low six-figure mark. These aren’t exact quotes-every roof has its own story-but those are the numbers you’ll see when you sit down with an estimator who actually measures your house and doesn’t just email you a square-foot number.

Aluminum shake is a premium roof, and its price tag behaves like one. I’ve spent eleven years turning pretty metal samples into honest numbers for Nassau County families, and I can tell you the first-cost conversation isn’t easy-cedar shakes feel cheaper up front, architectural shingles look downright affordable-but when you add up what cedar needs in replacements and repairs over thirty or forty years, the lifetime story flips pretty hard. That’s why I still keep the folder from my first big aluminum shake job on my desk, a cedar-roofed colonial in Rockville Centre whose owner just wanted the same shake look without the moss, rot, and constant repair calls.

In this article, I’m going to unpack exactly what lives inside that $18-$28 range, show you how size and shape move your number up or down, compare aluminum shakes to cedar and other metal options in both upfront cost and long-term spend, and hand you a simple sanity-check list so you can actually tell when a quote makes sense and when someone’s just throwing a ballpark your way.

Seeing the range is step one; understanding what builds that number is where you really save money.

$18-$28 a Square Foot: What That Really Means for Aluminum Shake Roofs

On a 1,600-square-foot cape in Levittown, that $18-$28 range turns into real numbers like this: you’re replacing maybe 1,800 to 2,000 square feet of roof once we account for overhangs and waste, and the job will land somewhere in the mid-to-high five figures if the roof is simple gables without a lot of hips or dormers. Pitch matters-steeper roofs cost more per square foot for safety, staging, and the extra labor it takes to cut and fit every shake panel-but a cape with straightforward 6/12 or 7/12 slopes and two or three penetrations (vents, chimney) usually sits near the lower or middle of that range. It’s an honest starting point, and it includes tear-off, underlayment, ice barrier, the aluminum shakes themselves, trim, fasteners, and labor.

Now compare that cape to a 2,200-square-foot colonial in Garden City or Massapequa with four hips, two dormers, and three chimneys. Same square-foot range, but suddenly you’re nudging toward the high end or even over it. Why? Because complexity adds layout time-every hip and valley needs careful measurements so the aluminum shakes look symmetrical-and you’re cutting a lot more trim and flashing around all those penetrations and roof planes.

In Massapequa, a couple showed me a magazine photo of a gray shake roof and said, “We want this, but we’re near the bay and tired of replacing wood.” I built them three estimates-high-end architectural shingle, standing seam, and aluminum shake-so they could see that aluminum shakes sat in the same price neighborhood as premium metal but kept that coastal, traditional look they loved. The shingle came in lower, the standing seam was close to the aluminum shake, and the aluminum shake landed on the high side but delivered the exact aesthetic they’d clipped from the magazine. That side-by-side helped them see they weren’t choosing expensive versus cheap; they were choosing shingle versus two different metals with different looks, and aluminum shakes won because of the shake texture.

Two same-size houses can be $10,000 or $15,000 apart on aluminum shakes based on shape alone. A simple ranch with broad gables and one chimney will always price lower per square foot than a story-and-a-half colonial loaded with valleys, dormers, and low-slope sections. That’s not the estimator padding numbers-it’s just more hours, more trim, and more careful work to make everything look clean and last forty years.

Step 1: How Your Cape or Colonial Turns That Range into a Real Number

Here’s how it works: I measure your roof area-usually fifteen to twenty percent bigger than your house footprint once we add overhangs-then I walk the roof (from the ground or ladder if it’s safe) and count hips, valleys, dormers, chimneys, skylights, and low-slope sections. Each one adds layout and trim time. A 2,000-square-foot colonial with simple gables and one chimney might clock in at fifty hours of total work; add three hips, two dormers, and a low-slope porch, and you’re looking at sixty-five or seventy hours because every junction needs custom-cut trim and careful underlayment overlap to keep water out for decades.

Size and Shape: The Base of Your Aluminum Shake Price

Roof area sets the floor-more square feet means more material and more labor-but shape and pitch are the multipliers. A 1,800-square-foot roof on a Garden City colonial with four hips and three dormers will cost noticeably more than a 1,800-square-foot ranch with two gables, even though the material count is similar, because the colonial needs more cuts, more waste (you can’t use every scrap when you’re fitting pieces into valleys), and more flashing. Pitch plays in too: an 8/12 or steeper slope needs extra staging and tie-off equipment, which adds labor hours and bumps the per-square-foot cost a couple bucks. Port Washington homes near the water often have steeper roofs to handle snow and rain loads, and those jobs always run a little higher than flat-suburban capes.

I’ve seen two clients in the same week-one with a 2,000-square-foot ranch in Plainview, another with a 2,000-square-foot colonial in Roslyn-and the ranch came in near $36,000 while the colonial hit $48,000 because the colonial had six roof planes, a turret, and two low-slope sections over a sunroom and porch. Same square footage, totally different job. That’s why I always measure and sketch the roof before I give you a number-I don’t want to lowball you and then surprise you with an adjusted quote after I climb up there.

Once I know size and shape, I can tell you where you’ll land in that $18-$28 range with pretty good confidence. Simple house near the low end, complex house near the high end, and anything in between is a sliding scale based on how much time each roof plane and detail takes.

Step 2: What You’re Actually Paying For Beyond the ‘Shakes’

If you’re used to pricing cedar shakes, the first surprise is how much of the aluminum shake cost isn’t “shakes” at all. Aluminum shake panels are a big chunk-maybe a third to forty percent of the total-but the rest breaks down into tear-off and disposal, deck repairs or vent improvements you find when the old roof comes off, high-performance underlayment and ice barrier (Nassau County code requires two feet of ice barrier along eaves, and I usually run it wider), trim and flashing around every penetration and edge, and labor to install everything so it looks good and passes inspection. Each bucket matters, and if an estimator hands you a quote that just says “aluminum shake roof, $X,” you’re missing the story.

Your Aluminum Shake Cost Buckets

I break every aluminum shake estimate into five buckets: tear-off and disposal (one to two layers of old shingles, underlayment, and nails hauled to the dump), deck and ventilation (repairing soft plywood where old ice dams rotted it, adding ridge vent or soffit vent if your attic isn’t breathing right), underlayment and ice barrier (synthetic felt across the whole roof, extra ice-and-water shield along eaves, valleys, and around chimneys), aluminum shake panels (the visible metal, sold by the square foot or sometimes by the panel depending on the manufacturer), and trim, flashing, and labor (cutting drip edge, step flashing every chimney and dormer, valley metal, and the crew hours to lay it all out so the shakes line up and look like real wood). Qualitatively, tear-off and prep might eat ten to fifteen percent of the job, underlayment and barriers another ten to fifteen, the aluminum shakes themselves thirty-five to forty, and trim-plus-labor fill out the rest. Those proportions shift based on how much old roofing you’re removing and how complex your roof is, but that’s the ballpark.

I started in a lumber yard, pricing real wood shingles and shakes, and I watched homeowners come back every seven or eight years for another pallet of cedar because moss, split ends, or a few blown-off shakes turned into leaks. That’s why I never roll my eyes when someone sees the aluminum shake price and winces-I get it, cedar looks cheaper on day one-but when you add up two or three cedar replacements over the life of one aluminum shake roof, the math gets pretty interesting. Aluminum shakes cost more now and save you a ton later, which is exactly what that Rockville Centre colonial owner wanted: same look, no repeat jobs.

Underlayment and ice barrier are especially important in Nassau County winters. We see freeze-thaw cycles, heavy wet snow, and ice dams on older homes that don’t have enough attic insulation. A quality synthetic underlayment (not cheap felt) and a proper ice barrier add maybe a thousand or fifteen hundred bucks to the job, but they’re the reason your aluminum shake roof stays dry inside for forty years instead of leaking after the first big winter.

Step 3: Aluminum Shakes vs Cedar, Standing Seam, and Other Metal Prices

One rainy May in Garden City, I priced an aluminum shake roof for a 2,200-square-foot colonial that had gone through two cedar roofs in thirty-five years. The owner showed me receipts-first cedar roof in the eighties, second one in the early two-thousands, and now in the late twenty-teens he was staring at a third. We sat at his kitchen table and I wrote out the math: aluminum shakes would cost him about one-and-a-half times what a third cedar roof would, but cedar would need treatment every few years, moss removal, and probably another replacement in fifteen or twenty years, while aluminum shakes would still be sitting there in forty years looking basically the same. Seeing his face when the real lifetime cost of buying cedar twice (and heading toward a third time) sank in is why I still keep that job folder on my desk-it’s the moment aluminum shakes stopped being “expensive” and started being smart.

Compared to other metal roofs, aluminum shakes usually land here on the price ladder: standing seam steel runs in a similar range-high teens to mid-twenties per square foot depending on panel profile and fastening system-and aluminum shakes sit right there with it or a hair above if you’re doing full-roof shake coverage instead of accents. Steel shingles (the kind that look like dimensional asphalt shingles but in metal) tend to come in a few bucks cheaper than aluminum shakes, and exposed-fastener steel panels are way cheaper but look utilitarian, not traditional. So if you want metal and you want a shake look, aluminum shakes are basically your only option, and the price reflects that specialty appeal. Cedar wins on first cost if you ignore the future, high-end architectural shingles are the budget move, and aluminum shakes are the long-game play for people who love the shake aesthetic but never want to deal with wood rot again.

Step 4: How Coastal Location, Low-Slope Sections, and Design Choices Move the Number

In coastal towns like Freeport, Atlantic Beach, and Long Beach, aluminum’s resistance to rust is a big reason people look at it-but it nudges the labor number too. Coastal installs need stainless or coated fasteners to survive salt air, and I usually add extra fastening along edges and ridges to meet higher wind ratings near the water. That’s another couple hundred bucks in materials and an extra day of careful work, but it’s worth it when you’re three blocks from the bay and every storm brings salt spray. Aluminum shakes don’t rust like steel can (even galvanized steel will show surface rust in ten or fifteen years near saltwater), so the material choice saves you money in the long run even if the install costs a hair more up front.

One hot August in Glen Cove, I reworked an aluminum shake quote after we found a hidden low-slope section over a porch. The homeowner thought the whole roof was standard pitch, but that porch had a 2/12 slope tucked behind a hip, and low-slope areas need modified-bitumen underlayment or a fully adhered membrane instead of regular synthetic felt. Adjusting panel layout so the aluminum shakes didn’t look stubby on that shallow slope, adding more trim where the low section met the main roof, and upgrading underlayment bumped the price maybe four or five thousand bucks-not a deal-breaker, but a surprise. That experience still shapes how I explain to homeowners that not all of the cost is in the “shakes”-roof shape and details matter too, and you won’t really know until someone measures and looks at every plane.

Design choices-color, texture, and how much of the roof you cover in shake vs. simple panels-quietly move the total. Some folks do aluminum shakes only on the street-facing slopes and switch to standing seam or a simpler panel on the back to save money; that can knock five to ten thousand off a big colonial because you’re buying fewer specialty panels and spending less labor on layout. Color upgrades (custom finishes beyond the standard grays and browns) might add a couple hundred bucks per square, and thicker-gauge aluminum or deeper embossing for a more pronounced shake texture costs a bit more too. None of these are huge line items on their own, but two or three design upgrades together can push a mid-range aluminum shake job toward the high end of that $18-$28 range.

Step 5: Sanity-Check Any Aluminum Shake Quote You Get in Nassau County

Once you know where your house sits on size and complexity, you can sanity-check any aluminum shake quote you get. Look for these things: Does the quote clearly break out tear-off, underlayment, aluminum shake panels, trim and flashing, and labor as separate line items, or is it just one lump sum? Did the estimator actually measure your roof-walk it, sketch it, count valleys and chimneys-or did they just multiply your house square footage by a number? Is there a paragraph or section explaining how aluminum shakes compare to cedar shakes and other metal options, so you understand what you’re paying for and what you’re getting in return? And finally, if you’re on the fence about doing the whole roof in aluminum shake versus just the front or main slopes, ask the estimator to price both versions so you can see the trade-off in real dollars-that upgraded trim package is a nice used car, doing the whole roof in shake instead of just the front is a couple of family vacations, and when you frame it that way the decision gets a lot clearer.

When you can see what each upgrade costs in real-life trade-offs-a used car here, a family vacation there-the “what do aluminum shake roofs cost?” question finally has an answer that makes sense.

Why TWI Roofing Builds Aluminum Shake Quotes This Way

At TWI Roofing, we’ve been walking Nassau County families through aluminum shake pricing on capes and colonials for years-Garden City, Massapequa, Port Washington, Levittown, and every coastal town in between. We measure every roof plane, break out every cost bucket, and always give you comparison numbers so you can see where aluminum shakes sit against cedar and other metal systems. The goal isn’t to sell you the most expensive roof; it’s to show you the real trade-offs so you can pick the roof that makes sense for your house, your budget, and how long you plan to stay.

Aluminum shakes aren’t cheap, but they’re honest. You pay more now, you never pay again, and you keep the shake look that fits Nassau County’s colonial and cape architecture without the moss, rot, or repair calls that come with cedar. That’s the pitch, and after eleven years of turning samples into numbers, I still believe it’s the best long-game roof you can buy if you love the way wood shakes look but you’re done dealing with wood.

If you’re in Nassau County and you’re serious about aluminum shakes-or you just want to see how they compare to cedar, standing seam, or high-end shingles-reach out to TWI Roofing. We’ll measure your roof, sketch the details, and build you a quote that breaks out every bucket so you know exactly what you’re paying for and why. No guesses, no surprises, just honest numbers and a roof that’ll still look good when your grandkids graduate.