Do metal roofs affect cell phone reception?
In a word, yes. The metal roof of your house or building will block cell phone signals coming from cell towers. That is unless you install a signal amplifier to boost the signals.
I recently moved into a new home and was looking forward to having my own place with satellite TV and reliable cell phone service even when I'm in my detached garage located about 50ft from my house. In my previous single-level townhome, I had never had any trouble with either AT&T U-verse or Verizon FIOS so I was a little disappointed to find out that both services were not available at my new home which features three stories plus a basement.
The first thing I did moving in was try to get satellite TV service. I called Dish Network and they informed me that there was no signal at my location. I then called DirecTV, but they too informed me that I could not get satellite TV reception due to lack of a clear view of the southern sky from my home.
My next step was to check on cell phone reception. I normally use Cingular (now AT&T), so I set up an appointment with them hoping for good news when their installer came by the house. He tested all over the place with his portable test equipment and everywhere he went, he got No Service messages until he opened up my garage door where immediately he got five bars of signal showing Verizon Wireless as the carrier. After doing some research, I found out why.
I live in a suburban area and we are served by two cell phone towers located on the next block over from me at about 25-35ft above ground level. Since these towers are about 1/4 mile away from my home, most of my house is shielded from their signals due to metal roofing.
The installer told me that with no signal, he couldn't complete the Cingular install because they rely heavily upon cell phone signals for routing calls which would not be possible if there was no signal whatsoever. He then tried to sell me an exterior antenna that I could place outside my house pointed directly at one of the nearby cell towers. The price was very high for something that might not work.
After testing myself on both sites, I came up with almost identical results to what the installer got when he tested my garage door where there were five bars indicating Verizon Wireless as the carrier of choice even though my home is located directly in between the two towers.
I did a little more digging and found out that I could get a signal repeater which, basically works by having your inside antenna pick up the radio signals from one of the nearby cell towers and then amplifying them so you can get a strong signal inside your house. After further research, I found out that some companies sell low-end units for around $100 while high-end units go for as much as $400.
In my case, since this was just an experiment to see how well these things worked, I bought a Wilson Electronics model 470107 Cell Phone Booster (3G/4G Signal Booster) on Amazon for about $120 with free shipping and had it delivered to my doorstep in a couple of days.
I set up the booster box inside my house plugged it in and instantly had five bars showing full signal strength on my cell phone for both phone calls and text messages throughout the entire house - no more dropped calls! It's been over a year now since I have had a reason to use it, but when I do need it, I just plug in the power supply and instantly have full cell service within minutes.
In conclusion, having metal roofing can be problematic due to your home being shielded from nearby cell towers which will drop you from 3G/4G coverage down to nothing or maybe even roaming if there is another tower located nearby with good so people would assume that they would get the same results even with a signal repeater when in fact they don't.
So if you are getting No Service messages indoors or dropping calls due to metal roofing, consider getting a cell phone signal booster or outdoor antenna to solve your problem instead of throwing away the money that the cellular companies would want you to spend on their services.
After all that, Many metal roofs contain up to 40 percent reused preparation, while the substance of metal roofs in itself is 100% recyclable. Because of its high recyclability and reusability, metal roof materials once in a while become squandered in a landfill.
Metal roofs not just have 25-95% reused content, contingent upon the material utilized, but on the other hand, are 100% recyclable toward the finish of their life as a roof. Conversely, most shingles remove squander winds up as a component of the structure-related waste stream — as much as 20 billion pounds each year.
The most ideal way of keeping your home cool is with protection. The more protection you have between the real living region and the roof, the better. It will fill in as an obstruction to get the hotness far from the home in the mid-year while keeping the glow inside in the wintertime of year.