Shingles are the Shit! $8/sq foot

I took a quick scan of the internet and did not find epoxy shingles, or even very much on epoxy tiles, although there is a lot on epoxy coatings and epoxy grout. Even some epoxy stickers, which I will have to go back and investigate later. The shingle thing isn't really done yet, from what I can tell. I went ahead and registered epoxyshingle and epoxyshingles.com, just to log in the idea on the internet in an unofficial time stamp sort of way. The other revelation is that shingles cost between $5 and $10 per square foot to purchase, which may include the overlapping surface area, but I am not sure. Assuming my basic cost on epoxy is $0.50 per ounce, not counting pigments or labor, then I can make a square foot of epoxy shingle for about 12 ounces of material, more or less. The economy of scale could bring this down a bit, but the pricing model is in the ballpark for my materials cost and potentially even competitive. Whereas competing with the price of plywood with epoxy is almost impossible, especially on the economy of scale.

The goal now is to think of a shingle type of design that I can make that could possibly be used on a small scale as a decoration and potentially on a larger scale as a functional protective covering for a house or boat. I like the idea of a shingle in that if you have a frame or surface that you want to seal you could use epoxy and bond them as a strong flexible exterior and make a homogenous structure where the shingles are permanently sealed against the surface and sealed to each other. Most other materials would have to use a different material or mechanical bonds to make them connect and all of those could weaken over time quicker than the bonds of epoxy on epoxy would break down.

I was wrong about the price of shingles, the $8/sq foot might be the price installed, or the price of a square, which may be 10' X 10' for a square. The average lifespan is 25 to 30 years for an asphalt shingle system and I have no idea how to test what the lifespan would be for an epoxy shingle. I'll look into how long epoxy coatings will last see what that uncovers.