"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.