The biggest renovation item so far has been replacing the roof on the house. Fortunately we did not even consider tackling this ourselves, but left it to the professionals. Our home has a ridiculously complicated roof caused by the several renovations that have been done over the years (and yes, we just made it more complicated with the ceiling bump-up in the master bedroom). The original structure started with just three roof lines in the form of an offset “H.” There are now eleven!

We knew when we bought that the roof would need to be replaced as it was buckled and the shingles were curling up in places. There was also evidence of minor leaks in a couple of spots. Prior to our purchase we got estimates and used that to negotiate the price down. Unfortunately the actual cost of the job was only a little less than double the estimate! Yikes! That was a little tough on the budget and will put some of the other renovations and furnishing off for a while.

Before the roofers started we had the brick chimney at the front of the house repaired. It had loose and flaking bricks and needed both re-pointing and some new bricks. Another job left to the professionals.

The house had two brick chimneys when we bought it. The one at the front of the house is architecturally essential, but the second one in the middle of the house had long since been converted to gas and would have required much additional maintenance. Rather than leave it as a potential weak point in the roof, and one more big item to repair and maintain we had the brick chimney removed to just below the roof and now have only the small gas insert vent stack penetrating the roof.

We did not go with the lowest bid for the roofing as we really wanted it done right. That alone probably added 15% to the cost, but I think that they did a good job, one which I hope will last close to the 50 year warranty we got.

At the end of a summer of unusually warm and dry weather the roofers started by removing a large section of the roof at the rear of the house. Immediately they found lots of failed roofing plywood that needed to be replaced…39 sheets on the first section of roof alone! Much of the damage to the roof decking was due to inadequate or missing eave venting. A large part of the extra expense was adding venting.

Naturally the first weekend of the roofing job we were treated to a wind and rain storm that did major damage throughout the region. The roofers had done a good job of securing tarps over the roof so that we only got a few small leaks in the part of the master bedroom where the roof had been removed. Fortunately no damage and only a little clean-up was required. That first bad storm signaled a change in the weather and increasing rain and cool weather. The roofers continued to work on dry days and did a  good job of protecting the stripped portions of the roof from bad weather.

One of the repairs we had done while the roof was being replaced was to replace two  1970’s style 4-foot by 4-foot plexiglass bubble skylights with new e-glass opening skylights. Not only do they look better than the old ones, but they should add some much needed ventilation during the few hot days of summer.

The roofing crew varied in number a bit but was never less than 5. The youngest was the designated gofer and clean-up man. They provided a giant dumpster for the debris and parked it as close to the house as possible. Although it was possible to toss whole shingles and large pieces into it, it was still too far to empty the trash barrel into it from the roof. The gofer would carry the barrel to the edge of the roof and toss the whole thing into the dumpster. He’d then climb down the ladder from the roof and climb up and into the dumpster to empty the barrel before tossing it out and climbing back onto the roof.

The building trades in Whatcom County are dominated by workers from Latin America. We enjoyed the opportunity to practice our Spanish on them and they seemed to enjoy our pathetic attempts too.

We ended up with a nice roof with PBO portions over the now only slightly sloped roof on the bump-up and in a particularly flat valley between two of the additions. The PBO roof was frightfully expensive, but that is part of another blog on the master bedroom remodel.