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When we bought our house a year ago, the inspector looked at the roof and said "that's good for about another year." He was right. It started leaking a bit yesterday. So we need a new roof. There are already two layers of shingles up, so the whole thing needs to be torn off and replaced. If I remember right, the building inspector recommended "Mr. Roof" and "Neighborhood Roofing". I called Mr Roof for an estimate - they'll be in tomorrow. I'm wondering who else I should call, and what experiences people have had with different roofers. The inspector also recommended improvements to attic ventilation when we put on a new roof. Any advice about vents and shingle types and such like stuff? I don't know a thing about any of this.
36 responses total.
We had our roof replaced in 1995 by "New Roof" (665-5555). They had been doing other roofs in the neighborhood, which looked good. The old roof was the original, and 28 years old. It did not leak, but we thought it was time to reroof anyway. The salesman was, well, a saleman, and spent the time needed to go over choices. When re-roof day came, however, it was like a tornado, with a large crew ripping off the old roof and installing the new one. They found many of the old roof sheathing plywood sheet plies separating, so a lot of those had to be replaced (the original estimate included replacing 5 - it required many more). The workmen were fast and not always careful. The worst problem was that one put his foot through the ceiling of an upstair room (while I was in it) - they had that repaired at their expense - *almost* as good as new. They also broke a sprinkler, bent a gutter, creamed a rose plant, and left much debris (nails, scraps of wood and roofing, etc) around the house. We are still finding bits. Are we pleased? On the whole, yes. I would expect the same "problems" could occur with any roofing company. We chose "Prestique I" (ELK Corp) "300 pound" shingles with a 30 year warranty. The warranty is for the original owner (will I still be the owner in 2025? Rather doubtful), and applies only to "defects in manufacturing" and blowoff (up to 5 years), but it is very unclear how it applies simply to aging over the courese of 30 years, since it excludes problems resulting from installation and related issues. The guarantee on the installation is only 10 years. Attic vents were installed. We were told they were required by current code (none had been put in when the house was built).
You want vents at the roof edge and at the ridgeline. Unless your attic is finished (hmm, maybe it is, come to think of it) attics work best unheated. Maybe they can vent a bit anyway, and perhaps beef up the insulation?
To elaborate: our house always had eave soffits and open end-wall windows, for ventilation, but the code requires ridge vents too, now. Of course, our attic is not finished. The roof trusses with their cross members effectively prevent use of the space.
My house has a furnished attic in basic Cape Cod style. There are
unfinished attic crawlspaces along the front and back edges of the house
where the roof is too low for habitation. So it looks like this:
_,-'`-._
_,-' `-._
_,-'| |`-._
_,-' | finished | `-._
_,-'________|______________|________`-._
The leaks I found were in the front crawl space. There is only about 4
inches between the ceiling in the finished part and the actual roof.
You can look up into the gap from the crawlspace. It is somewhat
loosely filled with aging insulation. (The floors of the crawlspaces
are covered with thick layers of much newer insulation.) Right now it
looks like a ridge vent would do some good, at least in the summer, as
there is space for airflow above the old insulation. But that would go
away if we upgraded the insulation, and I'd think a ridge vent could
make the upstairs a bit cooler in the winter if we don't upgrade the
insulation.
I've had New Roof do 3 roofs. I was very please with the first two but not with the last one. On the last one, done about two years ago, they simply contracted the job out. The people who were contracted were not good. They did not have the right tools for the job and the tools they did have were in bad repair. It even leaked after they were done and it was difficult to get them out to look at it. When they did, they were unable to find the reason for the leak. I had to go up and find it myself and then get them to come back out. The repair crew, however, did a very nice job. No more leak since they replace a large section of the roof. Mr. Roof seems to do a nice job and their equipment looks to be well maintained. Their add also says that they do all of their own work. i.e. They don't contract it out. (The crew that did my last roof had to take a day off so that they could replace the clutch on the $500 truck they had just bought, etc, etc.) Tou may also want to check out Sherriff Goslin Roofing. They are right down there by Keesan's project. I would stay away from ridge vents. Snow, spider silk, etc. Plugs up The tiny holes. Just go with the old fashioned roof vents.
I've recently researched roofing companies too and we ended up going with R.D. Kleinschmidt, Inc., out of Manchester. They do a lot of work in Ann Arbor and they did a fine job on our gutters 9 years ago. I was only able to find a couple of people who had them do roofing, but they both had good things to say. Our roof is being stripped and replaced around October 11th. Mr. Roof does a whole lot of work around town and I was able to find folks who both liked their work (ultra-fast with lots of workers on the job at one time) and didn't (poor cleanup, cost overruns, and leaks). Sherriff Goslin has a nice reputation. They came out and gave us a bid but then we had a terrible time getting together, by telephone, to discuss details. The salesperson / inspector essentially refused to telephone in the evening, when I'm available. He was very good about calling during the day, and leaving a message on our machine that he called. I'd call him back, in the evening, leaving messages on his machine asking him to call me back in the evening, and he'd call back the next *day*. This went on for some time until I gave up. ;-) Good luck with the roof!
For all I know, New Roof contracted out our roofing, and that might explain what I perceived was somewhat careless behavior. I never thought of that distinction. I should not have written "ridge vents" for our roof. They are separated vents placed just below the ridge (four on the house proper, three on the garage).
If you add more floor insulation you can put in baffles at the edges to prevent blockage of air flow. Fingerle's sells styrofoam ones. They push down the insulation at the edges to allow air flow. Sherrif-Goslin is down the street from us. We talked to the owner once and he seemed friendly. They install interlocking shingles which supposedly are not damaged as easily by wind, a hexagonal sort of pattern. At city hall they are always applying for variances to install their shingles on top of others without having to rip off other layers, as they are lighter than other shingles of equivalent durability so that there is no need (other than code) to remove any weight before installation). City Hall makes a bundle on the automatically issued permission (at least they did a few years ago).
Kleinschmidt did a fine job.
I need a minor roof related repair. The aluminum siding strip on the end rafter of the two-story part of the house has come un-nailed and is hanging a bit. Below it is the pitched roof of the one-story garage. I think it has to be fixed by going up on the 2-story roof and and leaning over the end to renail it. I am unwilling to do this, so would like to hire someone to make thick simple, quiuck repair - at a simple, quick price. Can anyone suggest a contractor that does such simple work?
Jim says 'Rane, the spelunker, is he afraid of heights?' Jim went up to the chimney of our neighbor's two-story house (with no 1-story garage below) and redid the mortar for them, so would not mind nailing your strip next time we are in the neighborhood (to fix a friend's plumbing) if you can provide the ladder (and maybe trade some more of those wonderful sauce apples for the repair). Would you like any photos of the yard taken from the roof? If you remind us, we could stop by sooner instead of later. We have a book on radio meteorology - want it? (P. S., an offer of any sort of food tends to get Jim places sooner - he cannot eat green paper.)
It is actually quite common for cavers to not like heights. But it doesn't matter, because *one cannot see bottom*, so is not afraid of it. We also learn to be quite competent with rope work. In fact, the one time I was on the roof, I threw a rope over it and my wife belayed me. I felt secure enough but, a) I could not traverse laterally on the rooft, and b) it looked like the rope would abrade a hole in the roof peak if I slipped. I used to climb in Yosemite, with exposure up to 1,000 feet (tree tops sure look tiny down there), but always on-rope. Being able to "see bottom" was a little concerning, but I trusted the rope, my belayer, and my skills. Very heady stuff. But the house isn't a cave, so I think my wife would be a little concerned about insurance and licensing - or does Jim have both for construction?
Jim is not licensed or insured, but when he went up to do the chimney he was roped. He was also roped while working on my stainless steel roof (resoldering the bad job done by the professionals, which leaked). Jim is not a professional construction person, just a friend offering to help.
I would like to thank Jim for the offer, but I believe I will hire a professional. So I still seek such a professional that does good work at a reasonable price.
Jim is building my house, if that makes him a professional. I pay his health
insurance, if that makes him insured. But feel free to pay someone for the
five minutes work if you consider that a reasonable approach. Jim did a much
nicer job covering part of the outside of my house with aluminum (which he
bent himself using a break) than I could have paid anyone for. You cannot
tell what is aluminum window and what is added aluminum.
Try a gutter installer, and hope you can get someone better than the
ones who put up a new roof on my neighbor's house and did not bother to take
three minutes to nail up a section of gutter that was coming off.
I certainly have meant no insult to you or Jim, so please don't take offense at my peculiar preference predilection. It is very hard to decline the offer of a gift meant in good spirit, but I hope you understand that it must be possible to do so without giving offense.
It is very difficult to offend either of us. I see roofers up on roofs all the time who are not working safely, so I suppose you would not want to hire a professional of that sort unless they had their own insurance. I hope that we are still welcome to more apples, and if you have something indoors that you would like repaired by someone without professional insurance, let us know. Jim says a licence does not mean that you have been tested, just that you registered with the city to do a certain type of work, and aluminum siding might not even be registerable.
Rane, at one point we had a minor roof leak for which we had Sheriff-Gosslin (not sure that's the right spelling) come out with the idea they'd give us an estimate for repairs. Turns out it was a very minor thing indeed, that he fixed on the spot, and didn't charge us a dime. A few years later, when we did indeed need a re-roof, we tried to reach the same guy but he'd retired and they were too busy at the time to accept our job on our time line. But you may find them less busy now.
We met the guy who retired, as he worked a block down the hill. He offered to come and help us work on our house for a day, for free. Nice guy. Aluminum siding does not normally fall under the roofing category.
Hmmm. I think I am going to reroof my house this spring...or rather, I am going to hire someone to do it. This item has been helpful. Has anyone else had to do any roofing in the past year or so?
No, but we're about to. We got an estimate from Mr Roof that ran high. I'm going to try calling Sherrif Goslin.
Mr. Roof seems to do good work. We had good luck with New roof on our old house but they did a shotty job on the new place about 5 years later.
The nice thing about Mr. Roof is that they do the job in one day. No worrying about it raining while there is no roof on the house. I have heard horror stories about having the old roof removed and the company not coming back for days to weeks before finishing the job.
One of their workers put his foot through the ceiling of an upstairs room while I was in it..... We were also picking up nails and bits and pieces of roofing around the house for some time. But the roof is working.....
I was picking up pieces of roofing (metal shards) from around my house for the two weeks they were putting it on, and I appreciated that I was not getting charged union wages to have the roofers clean up instead.
A fat magnet is a wonderful clean-up-after-the-roofers tool. I've heard some bad rumors about Mr. Roof, but my impression is that the whole residential roofing industry is pretty seedy.
I have already decided to get an estimate from Mr Roof. I like the idea of having it all done in one day. But, I'll get some other estimates too.
Mr Roof did a good job on our old house. The odd thing is that only one person on the whole team that did the work spoke English. The other five guys only spoke Russian. I felt like running out of my house yelling "The Russians are invading! The Russians are invading! And they're fixing my roof!"
OOooooOOO were they single?
Re #29: shingle perhaps ;-) I was surprised to find shingle roofs when I came to the U.S. Back home in Britain, residential homes have mostly slate, stone or thatch (old cottages), clay tiles or some kind of artificial slate-like flat tile. Metal roofs are probably common for commercial and industrial buildings. How long should I expect a shingle roof to last? Ten years? Five? Perhaps roofing materials vary with climate.
Asphalt shingles are rated for I think 25-30 years (some are better than others) but can last longer. The ones on Jim's steep roof are original to the house (late 1930s) as far as he knows, and he bought the house in about 1975. They wear out faster on shallow slopes, if branches fall on them, if wet leaves sit on them, if moss grows on them, etc. More moss grows on the north than the south side. Wood shingles and shakes have different problems (they rot, split, etc.). You can buy aluminum shingles, which don't rot. Or strip roofing which does not look like shingles. Asphalt shingles are often designed to imitate wood or slate. Concrete shingles imitate slate or clay tile. You can buy metal shingles that imitate other things or not. Or metal roofing with seams (crimped or just overlapping with screws) and it is getting more popular for residental use. We have a crimped stainless roof. Some neighbors have a red-painted steel roof. Shallower slopes restrict the type of fasteners possible (water can back up more easily). Why do you ask?
"Back home in Britain" wood frame houses are also not the norm. A lot of these choices depend upon the costs of materials - and the weather. "Back home in Britain" a lot of water/drain pipes were put on the home outside. Can't do that in parts of the US where it freezes hard.
Re #31: Is your stainless steel roof shiny? I imagine that might help to reduce summer cooling bills a bit. I ask because it's likely that one day I will have to buy a house of some kind. Re #32: wood framing has become quite common again, although it's often faced with brick. Good point regarding the drainpipes.
The stainless steel roof is quite shiny. We have no cooling bills (until we start running an attic fan at night after extremely hot days). There is 15" of ceiling insulation and 9" wall insulation. The attic has screening all along the periphery and more at the top but it does get rather hot anyway in the daytime. The house stays under 80, if it cools off to that at night when we open it up.
Screening as in the mesh that people use for windows and screen doors to keep the bugs out? Is this over vents in the soffit, or is the entire soffit made of mesh? Is the attic fan right up at the ridge, exhausting to the outside? It does sound as though your insulation is effective.
Entire soffit is screened, about 9" wide. No fan yet but we have a screened cupola at the top which promotes airflow upwards and would also direct the fan at that (central). The house also stays pretty warm in winter but there is no insulation under the floor yet so it gets down to about 40 (ground temperature?) by February on really cold days.
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