Thinking back to our roof job...

When we moved in our roof, especially on the street side, looked terrible. Old asphalt shingles, very deteriorated, were revealing the worst in their character. The other sides weren't as bad, but it was scary to look at. What it was showing us was a roof that had inadequate ventilation, and too many layers of shingles on it.

On a bungalow like ours, the hipped roof is really visible, and prominent. If it looks bad, you could fiddle with everything else, and the house would still look bad. By fall, I was ready to fix things. But, not myself. I wasn't as brave as some who might do their own roof. Plus I didn't have time. I had a home equity line of credit, and needed a professional. Looking back, it was the right decision. I got at least 4 bids for someone to remove all the layers (2 asphalt and 2 wood), put a layer of plywood down over the old skip-sheathing, and then put down 30 year architectural style shingles. They varied by as much as $4,000. I chose a contractor who had done a house for my mother, who also had the lowest price, around $7500. Were the others just trying to price themselves out of this kind of work? Probably so.

When they came to work the noise, dust and dirt began. They quickly created Mt. Shingle on the south side of the house, consisting of ancient shingles from the previous layers. The strip off took days. The plywood went down in a day, then on went the shingles in a couple days.

I chose a color of shingles that would look good with the earth tones in the brick. The change was dramatic, and quick, and I'm sure glad I didn't have to do that work. It was bad enough picking up the shingle chunks they missed.