All 22 colours in the current range, which ones suit which houses, what light and dark do to heat and your BASIX certificate, and the five we install more than all the others put together.
Colour is the decision most people agonise over on a Colorbond roof, and the one that changes the price the least. Every colour in the standard range costs the same. What the colour does change is how the house looks from the street for the next thirty years, how hot the roof space runs, and in NSW, what your BASIX certificate asks of the rest of the build. This guide covers all of that from the point of view of the people who put the sheets on.
Across the Colorbond roofs we replace and repair in Sydney, five colours account for most of the work in our own job list: Monument, Surfmist, Basalt, Shale Grey and Woodland Grey. Monument dominates new builds and full renovations. Surfmist owns the coast and anything Hamptons. The three greys are what people choose when they are re-roofing an existing brick home and want it to look current without looking like a new build.
If you are stuck, that list is a reasonable shortcut. Everything below is for the people who want to get it right rather than just get it done.
Three things, in order of how much they matter.
Heat. A dark roof absorbs more of the sun than a light one. Every Colorbond colour except Night Sky carries BlueScope's Thermatech solar-reflective coating, which narrows the gap without closing it. Monument and Night Sky run noticeably hotter in the roof space than Surfmist or Shale Grey on a summer afternoon. If the house has no ceiling insulation and no sarking under the roof, colour is the least of your problems, and fixing those two makes a bigger difference than any colour choice.
BASIX. In NSW, new homes and most substantial renovations need a BASIX certificate, and roof colour is one of the inputs. BlueScope publishes a solar absorptance figure for each colour (Dover White 0.28, Surfmist 0.33, Classic Cream 0.33, Southerly 0.40, Shale Grey 0.44, Dune 0.48, Windspray 0.60, Wallaby 0.64, Jasper 0.67, with Monument and Night Sky at the dark end), and BASIX groups them into light, medium and dark bands from that figure. A dark roof is allowed, but it can push the ceiling insulation requirement up to compensate. If you are doing a re-roof that needs council approval, ask whichever certifier or draftsperson is doing the BASIX which band your colour falls into before you order sheets.
Dirt and fading. Light colours show rust streaks from an old TV aerial bracket and lichen on the south side. Dark colours show dust, pollen and the chalking that all metal roofs do eventually. Mid greys hide both, which is a large part of why Basalt and Shale Grey are so common.
The list is BlueScope's current core range of 22 (Terrain, Mangrove and Cove were retired to special order in 2022 and are not shown). Swatches below are approximations on a screen. The real colour depends on the finish, the light and what it is next to. Get a sample chip, hold it against the brick and the gutters at midday and again late afternoon, then decide.
Colorbond, Thermatech and the colour names are trademarks of BlueScope Steel; solar absorptance figures are from BlueScope's published colour chart. The notes are ours. Always confirm against a current physical chart before ordering.
This is most of Sydney. Woodland Grey, Basalt and Wallaby all work because they pick up the grey mortar rather than fighting the brick. Monument works if the trim and gutters go dark too. Avoid warm beiges next to orange brick; the two argue.
Manor Red and Jasper sit comfortably among terracotta neighbours, and Classic Cream or Paperbark suit weatherboard Federation homes. Some heritage areas restrict roof colour, so check the council's heritage controls before ordering. We re-roofed an old iron section on a Surry Hills terrace this year and the owners went with tiles to match the street instead, which is the other answer.
Monument, Ironstone or Deep Ocean for the dark-roof look, Southerly or Dover White if the render is the feature and the roof should disappear. Surfmist on a rendered home reads Hamptons rather than modern, which is fine if that is the intent.
Surfmist, Windspray, Shale Grey and Bluegum. Near the surf, the colour matters less than the grade of steel: within a few hundred metres of breaking surf, ask for Colorbond Ultra rather than standard.
Pale Eucalypt, Cottage Green and Woodland Grey disappear into the canopy from the street and from above. Gully and Jasper suit timber-clad homes.
The roof is one colour decision; the edges are another. Three usual approaches: match the gutters to the roof so the roofline reads as one block, match the gutters to the wall or trim so the roof floats above a lighter edge, or go dark on gutters and fascia regardless of roof colour, which is the current default on modern builds. Downpipes almost always match the wall they run down, not the roof.
If you are re-roofing and keeping the old gutters, hold the roof sample against the gutter, not the brick. A new Monument roof over ten-year-old Paperbark gutters looks like exactly what it is.
The standard Colorbond finish has a soft sheen. The Matt finish is available in six colours (Monument, Basalt, Surfmist, Shale Grey, Dune and Bluegum) and hides ripples in the sheet and reflections from the sun. It costs more per sheet and shows fingerprints during install, which does not matter once it is up. Colorbond Ultra is a corrosion grade for coastal and industrial exposure, available in a limited set of the core colours (Surfmist, Shale Grey, Dune, Windspray and Wallaby among them; check the current chart), and is the right call within a few hundred metres of surf regardless of colour.
Nothing, within the standard range. Every one of the 22 core colours is the same price. The things that move a Colorbond re-roof quote are the roof area, the pitch, the profile (corrugated is cheapest, Klip-Lok and Trimdek cost more), whether the old roof is tile or metal, and what the timber looks like once the old roof comes off. Our roof replacement calculator measures your roof from satellite and prices Colorbond, concrete tile and terracotta side by side, and the Colorbond roofing Sydney page has the per square metre rates we work from.
A Colorbond roof can be repainted with a proper metal roof coating system, and we do it. It will never last as long as the factory finish, so if there is a colour you want, order it at install rather than planning to fix it later. The exception is an old roof in good structural condition that has faded or chalked, where a coating is a sensible way to get another decade out of it. See roof painting for how that works.
Pick the band first: light for heat and BASIX, dark for the modern look, mid grey if you want to stop thinking about it. Then pick from that band by holding chips against the brick and the gutters, on the house, at two different times of day. Then check the council if the street is heritage listed. Then order. Most people who regret a roof colour skipped the step where they looked at it on the house.
Monument, Surfmist, Basalt, Shale Grey and Woodland Grey are the colours we install most. Monument leads on new builds and modern renovations, Surfmist on coastal and Hamptons style homes, and the mid greys on brick homes being re-roofed.
Not in the standard range. All 22 core colours are priced the same per sheet. The Matt finish and the Ultra grade cost more, and those decisions matter more to the quote than the colour itself.
Yes. Every Colorbond colour has a reflective coating that narrows the gap, but a dark roof still absorbs more heat than a light one. In NSW the colour feeds into BASIX, so a dark roof can mean more ceiling insulation is required. Sarking and insulation do more for comfort than the colour.
It can be painted with a metal roof coating system, but the factory finish outlasts any paint, so choose the colour you want at install.
Manor Red is the closest to a fresh terracotta and Jasper to a weathered one; Terrain, which used to be the standard answer, is special order only since 2022. Neither is an exact match, so if only one section of a tiled roof is going to metal, expect it to read as a different material even in the right colour.
Related: Colorbond roofing Sydney · roof replacement Sydney · metal roof repairs · roof replacement cost calculator
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