"Having a roof over your head" takes on a whole new meaning

Our journey into home ownership has taken another turn. We are now experiencing the wonderful world of roofing. I'll be clear up front: I went into this project with a clear understanding that a new roof was not going to be a cheap or fun experience. The general price that I've gotten from friends and family who've been blessed with the experience of putting a new roof on their home has been roughly between $11,000-$15,000. Okay, so that's a lot of money, but it's a roof after all and something that should last 20 or so years, right? Right.

Now, we have to be savvy about this project, and heaven knows we don't want a rerun of last year's front steps debacle. This means bids, bids, and more bids before we get started. After asking everyone and their brother who they would recommend, we've brought in 5 companies to give us estimates on re-roofing the house and garage. (We also need some minor tuckpointing done to the bricks at the top of our chimney, so we're also investigating that now with these companies.) Here's what we've learned from them so far as I've broken it down into two categories:

WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW

• We need a new roof.
• It is going to be expensive.

WHAT WE LEARNED

• We REALLY need a new roof. Apparently, there is only 1 layer of singles on the house and they are pretty much done for. In addition, we've been told the current roof is approximately 20-30 years old.
• Because we have a steep pitch to our Tudor style house, it's going to cost more than re-roofing the average home.
• There may be spots on the roof that are soft and need to be repaired.
• Different companies/people have really different styles of doing business: some very professional and some not so much.
• Not all construction companies do both roofing and tuckpointing. This means additional/other people may need to be brought on. Sigh. If you recall the "Great Front Step Massacre of 2011," you know I hate dealing with contractors and subcontractors.

Now I have to add a new category. This category is titled, "HOLY CRAP / ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" This is where I share the totally unexpected news about the roof and ensuing project(s).

• Like I mentioned above, we have a Tudor style home. This means we have a brick bottom half of the house with a half timber and stucco upper level. Refer to the picture if you need a visual. When the house was built (ca. 1940), the timber portion was wood painted brown. At some point in time, a set of owners got tired of painting the wood and had it covered with brown aluminum sheeting. Interesting. I didn't really think or pay attention to that fact when looking at the house. Apparently, if this is not installed perfectly, water can leak in between the aluminum sheeting and the side of the house (stucco) and cause the original wood to rot. This brings me to bullet point 2.
• At various places on the house we have rotten wood underneath the sheeting. Oh joy. Couldn't see it, didn't know it was there, but now we've got a problem. Naturally, there are places in the roof where it intersects with the sheeting. Obviously, sheeting will need to be removed/replaced to fix the roof thus exposing said rotten wood. More money.
• When the roofers replace the sheeting, doing so with the rotten wood would not be advised. The nails used to hold the sheeting won't go back into the rotten wood. Will have to replace with new wood and new sheeting. Hm...if we put new sheeting on in some places around the house, won't we need/want to replace it elsewhere on the house so that it all matches? More money.

As a side point, I'm a little concerned because only 2/5 people who've come for bids have noticed the problem with the wood and the sheeting. What does that mean? Did the others not see it? Would it come up as an added expense later once we're into the project?

But hold on; here comes the fun part. Ready? The last person to come here on Friday to look at the roof greeted me by saying, "I'm already familiar with this house. I was here 3 years ago making repairs for the owners." Um...okay....so what do I do with that information? First thoughts, "Oh crap! Now what?" So I asked him to fill me in on why he was here and what he did. He repaired different parts of the roof where the owners were experiencing leaks and ice dam problems. Well, that explains the different colored shingles/patchiness we can see. At the time, he explained to the owners the need for a new roof and the problem with the rotting wood and the sheeting. Their response to him was to just patch it. Apparently this happened right as they were planning to sell the house and move and they didn't want to put the money in. Go figure. Maybe that's why they moved. How much money was his estimate in 2009? Then it was about $18,000. And now? Um yeah, a little bit more and that doesn't count any work on tuckpointing the chimney. So we're definitely looking at over $20,000.

Sigh.

I have one more person coming in on Monday to take a look. I've heard good things about this company and so I'm hopeful they will prepare an estimate that takes all these things into account but that comes in at a reasonable price. Pray for me.

Back Yard Bonanza!

Spring Break is just about over, but I am happy to report it was a good one! No, we didn't go anywhere this year, and that is fine. With so much traveling coming up for both Ken and me in the next two weeks, it was nice to just hang at home.

The weather was beautiful -- almost 70-75 degrees everyday!  And that's in March! It was very reminiscent of the 2009 March weather during our wedding. Crazy.  We spent almost every day outside in the back yard doing projects. Things we accomplished: dug old tree stump out of space behind the garage, laid brick path in space left by removing old stump,  trimmed dead limbs, pulled out old leaves and sticks from flower beds, and pulled out stones from pond area. I also pulled out some old cinder blocks that were buried in a flower garden in the middle/back of the yard. I plan to plant a bunch of "hummingbird friendly" flowers there in April.

Now, sad as I am that break is almost over, I'm more sad that I haven't done any grading over break. I got out my laptop this afternoon with the explicit purpose of doing that now, but I found myself playing on eBay for the past hour or so. I guess it's time to face the music and realize play time is over. On the plus side...only about 6 weeks left until the semester is over!  Then it's back in the back yard for more play time!

And now for the furnace

Home update time. Our next major house project came in the form of our furnace. Our house actually has 2 furnaces and 2 central air units. One set heats/cools the old part of the house and the other set heats/cools the back part of the house -- the addition put on in the 1950s. While I was in FL for a conference last week, Ken discovered that our back furnace had quit working. Not that we really noticed it though for 2 reasons: 1) the weather hasn't been that cold lately, and 2) we generally keep the house relatively cool anyway. It's just the two of us after all and we don't care.

We thought about calling a furnace repair person/business to come check it out, but that last time we had to do that, we had a negative and very costly experience. Forget that!  After our whole front porch steps incident last summer, we've decided to only bring someone on for a house project if they have been recommended by someone we trust. So I sent out an email asking for our local friends and family to give us some ideas of people that would recommend for things like the furnace, roofing, plumbing, etc. -- general home owner-type service personnel.

Ken's brother Tom -- an electrician and handyman of sorts -- offered to come over and check out our furnace.  It turns out that it was going to be a pretty simple fix. I guess (and I spare you all the details because, well, frankly, I wasn't paying attention) that the igniter had burned out. Tom told where he could get a part and then explained how to fix it. Ken ran by the parts store on his way home from work today, got it, and came home to install. I kid you not, it took him probably 2 or 3 minutes total and it was done and working!  We've now got the back room set at a balmy 62 degrees (it was only 60 without the furnace working). What a relief!  The whole project only cost about $32! Awesome!  Mucho thanks to brother Tom!