Flat: These are found in traditional buildings in regions with a low precipitation. Modern materials which are highly impermeable to water make possible the low-pitch roofs found on large commercial buildings. Although referred to as flat they are generally gently pitched.
Shed roof (lean-to, pent roof,[2] skirt roof, outshot, skillion, mono-roof[3]): A roof with one slope, historically attached to a taller wall.
Saw-tooth: Multiple single-pitched roofs arrayed in a row, sometimes seen onfactories.[4]
Multi-pitched roof:
Gable (ridged, dual-pitched, peaked, saddle, pack-saddle, saddleback,[5] span roof[6]): A simple roof design shaped like an inverted V.
Cross gabled: The result of joining two or more gabled roof sections together, forming a T or L shape for the simplest forms, or any number of more complex shapes.
Half-hipped (clipped gable, jerkinhead[7]): A combination of a gable and a hip roof (pitched roof without changes to the walls) with the hipped part at the top and the gable section lower down.
Dutch gable, gablet: A hybrid of hipped and gable with the gable (wall) at the top and hipped lower down; i.e. the opposite arrangement to thehalf-hipped roof. Overhangingeaves forming shelter around the building are a consequence where the gable wall is in line with the other walls of the buildings; i.e., unless the upper gable is recessed.
Saltbox, catslide: A gable roof with one side longer than the other, and thus closer to the ground unless the pitch on one side is altered.
Bonnet roof: A reversed gambrel or Mansard roof with the lower portion at a lower pitch than the upper portion.
Monitor roof: A roof with a monitor; 'a raised structure running part or all of the way along the ridge of a double-pitched roof, with its own roof running parallel with the main roof.'
Butterfly roof (V-roof,[8] London roof[9]): A V-shaped roof resembling an open book. A kink separates the roof into two parts running towards each other at an obtuse angle.
Karahafu: A type of gable found in some traditional Japanese buildings.
Hidden roof: A type of Japanese roof construction.
Hip, hipped: A hipped roof is sloped in two pairs of directions (e.g. N–S and E–W) compared to the one pair of direction (e.g. N–Sor E–W) for a gable roof.
Cross hipped: The result of joining two or morehip roof sections together, forming a T or L shape for the simplest forms, or any number of more complex shapes.
Satari: A Swedish variant on themonitor roof; a double hip roof with a short vertical wall usually with small windows, popular from the 17th century on formal buildings.[citation needed] (Säteritak in Swedish.)
Mansard (French roof): A roof with the pitch divided into a shallow slope above a steeper slope. The steep slope may be curved. An element of the Second Empire architectural style (Mansard style) in the U.S.
Neo-Mansard, Faux Mansard, False Mansard, Fake Mansard: Common in the 1960s and 70s in the U.S., these roofs often lack the double slope of the Mansard roof and are often steeply sloped walls with a flat roof. Unlike the Second Empire, where upper story windows were contained within dormers, Neo-Mansard roofs have window openings cut through the steep slope of the lower roof, forming a recessed window.
Gambrel, curb, kerb: A roof similar to a mansard but sloped in one direction rather than both.
Bell-cast (sprocketed, flared): A roof with the shallow slope below the steeper slope at the eaves. Compare withbell roof.
Pavilion roof : A low-pitched roof hipped equally on all sides and centered over a square or regular polygonal floor plan.[10] The sloping sides rise to a peak. For steep tower roof variants usePyramid roof.
Pyramid roof: A steep hip roof on a square building.
Pyatthat: A multi-tiered and spired roof commonly found in Burmese royal and Buddhist architecture.
Tented: A type of polygonal hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak
Helm roof,Rhenish helm: A pyramidal roof with gable ends; often found on church towers.
Spiral, a steeply pitched spire which twists as it goes up.
Arched roof, also called a Gothic arch, and ship's bottom roof,Weston, Oregon
Abonnet roof with lower pitched lower slopes at a lower pitch, as seen on traditional barns in the western United States,Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
^Long, George. "Roof".The Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London: Charles Knight, 18331843. 143. Print.
^Harris, Cyril M.. "Pent roof".Harris dictionary of architecture & construction. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. Print.
^Cowan, Henry J., and Peter R. Smith. "Shed roof"Dictionary of architectural and building technology. London: Elsevier Applied Science Publishers; 1986. 272. Print.
^"The Machine Shop and the Works. Modern Principles of Design",The Times: Engineering Supplement, London, November 13, 1912, p.25.
^Fleming, Honour, & Pevsner,A Dictionary of Architecture
^Passmore, Augustine C. (1904). "Span Roof".Handbook of technical terms used in architecture and building and their allied trades and subjects. London: Scott, Greenwood, and Co. 325. Print.
^Passmore, Augustine C. "V Roof".Handbook of technical terms used in architecture and building and their allied trades and subjects. London: Scott, Greenwood, and Co.;, 1904. 362. Print.
^Coutts, John.Loft Conversions. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 2012. Print.