Roof pictures
Posted by Brian July 18, 2005
So, I have a new roof.
Here is an example of why I needed one. As you can see, the old roof was rotting:
It turns out, on the back addition to the house, there were five layers of shingles up there. That’s a lot of weight! (Perhaps around 1500 pounds per 100 square feet.) No wonder the shingles were all wavy and the rafters were sagging. The main part of the house had 3 layers of shingles plus the original cedar shakes under that. I can almost hear the rafters sighing with relief to get all that weight off of them. During the process, the roofers tore away everything down to the slats on which the cedar shakes had rested. It was kind of neat to go up into the attic and be able to see outside:
The workers (mostly from Mexico, except for the man who owned the roofing business) stayed very busy from Thursday till Saturday. I tried to speak to them sometimes, but I don’t think they understood English very well. But they always smiled and were very polite. It was a little funny to hear the owner of the business saying, “Muy bien, muy bien!” to them all the time. I spoke with him quite a bit. He seemed very friendly and honest. There was a big mess in the yard the whole time, but that’s to be expected, I guess. They did a not-too-bad job of cleaning up afterward. Here’s the yard (seen from the attic), when the mess was still ramping up - the second day, I think:
I’m really glad I got this done. Not only did they replace the obvious damage, but it turns out that there was lots of rotten wood in various places all over. They fixed that, too. I still get sick about how much it cost ($$$$$), but really, it was worth it. I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten. It really needed fixing. Here’s a shot of the same section as above, after things were fixed up. You can see three new pieces of rafter on the left:
Finally, here’s a shot of the entire back of the house. So much better!!!! The roof is so flat! I’m quite pleased with it. The old shingles were black/grey. The new ones are a heathery brown. I briefly considered red, but chickened out. While they were stripping the old layers, I did see, however, that in the past the roof was a brownish-red color.
There’s still a slight dip in the front of the house, but it looks much better than it did.
Now, if I can just scrape up some money to paint the house…..
You’s a rich folk! Five dollah a lotta money!
My dad insisted on replacing our roof last year because it was the original roof (1988). That, of course, was before he stopped speaking to me.
Anyway, it looks terrific.
The new roof looks great! Glad you were able to get the roof done and fix the other rotten places. Wow, that was lot of layers of shingles. I like the color of the roof. Are you going to paint the house the same color it is now or change it?
The new roof looks great! Glad you were able to get the roof done and fix the other rotten places. Wow, that was lot of layers of shingles. I like the color of the roof. Are you going to paint the house the same color it is now or change it?
Sorry, I don’t know how I did that last one twice!!
I think I will paint it green again. It will probably look a little darker, since the current paint is so faded.
I didn’t mention that there’s now a ridgeline vent up there. The roofer said that ridgeline vents are “money in the bank” since they cut down on energy costs. However, one of the other roofers that I got an estimate from said that my energy bills will probably go up, since there aren’t as many layers up there acting as insulation. I guess time will tell.
Another side-effect - many of my windows will open now, which would not open before!