Barn Roofs

Kentucky Barn Roofs

Kentucky has many beautiful farms and they all have one thing in common, a barn of some type.

The two most common roof types used on barns are Gable and Gambrel.

A Gable Roof is a common type of roof that has two sides that extend from a central ridge to form an “A” shape. The actual gables are the triangular insets on each end of house. The ancient Greeks and Romans often used the gable, which they called the tympanum, as a background for frescos and relief designs, and some Victorian architects embellished it with decorative trim. Gable roofs shed water well, but they aren’t the best option in windy locations.

A Gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was “Dutch roof”.) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, while the lower slope is steep.