A finished roof and an update, finally

I haven't posted here in a while because there hasn't been much going on around the house. The roof repairs are done for this year. I'm really pleased with the job that Dennis Crookshanks did on the job. There was a large section of slate that showed evidence of several different repairs in the past. He replaced it with flat-seam copper and installed ice guards. He also replaced some of the slate on the breezeway and replaced the flashing there, too.



The flat-seam copper really looks great.

Of course, now I'm seeing all the other flashing work that needs to be done - one project at a time, I guess. Given the build quality of the rest of the house, I'm surprised that they used galvanized flashing instead of copper.

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There's another reason why I haven't posted on here in a while. I've been working on another project, Cleveland Area History. I've been writing about all sorts of things relating to the history of the greater Cleveland area. I toured the house where Langston Hughes lived during his sophomore and junior years of high school. I've talked about two of the oldest houses in the area, one in Cleveland Heights, the other in Cleveland. I've illustrated a National Register of Historic Places historic district. And there's more. Check it out.

Roof progress!

I had assumed that Dennis Crookshanks wouldn't be able to start work on the roof until spring. Much to my surprise, I got an email last week saying that he would beginning shortly. He began replacing the slate in the trouble area with flat-seam copper, which should hold up better than the slate.



The copper, it looks so pretty.

Midtown Roofing Supply - purveyor of copper goods for roof repair

Midtown Roofing Supply, at 2695 E 55th St, Cleveland, OH, 44104, (216-431-4545), is an unassuming brick building that you'd probably miss if you weren't looking for it. There are no windows and it only has parking for two or three cars. I certainly wouldn't have stopped there if not for the recommendation by the people at Sutton Industrial Hardware.

Midtown Roofing seems to be the best place in Cleveland to buy the various supplies and tools that one might need to work on a slate roof. This includes slate hooks, in both copper and stainless steel, copper for flashing and valleys, as well as the various tools, like slate hammers and slate rippers that are needed to work with slate.

They might have quite a bit more, too - I'm not sure - most of the stock was back in their storeroom, not out on display.

Disappointment

We are presently looking to see what our options are for pursing legal action against Paul David Plumbing. He has failed to deliver on the projects that he was contracted to complete, namely repairs to the roof, the chimney, and our gutters, supplying us with excuse after excuse after excuse.

He had said (and I should have specified further in our contract) that he had talked with a roofing firm who was to repair our roof and that he would only act as assistant. Now, with excuse after excuse, he's begun the work on the roof, himself. First he completed some work on the breezeway, which acceptable. Then he began to work on the main roof of the house. The slates that he had ordered were not long enough for the job, but he did not realize that. As a result, as installed, they do not have sufficient overlap. Further, the framing of our roof curves out, and the proper slate shims were not installed to avoid stress upon the slate.

This guy doesn't know what he's doing. He's taking forever. Right now, there's a big open chunk on our roof and we're screwed.

I bring up these issues and he just comes up with one excuse and then another. It's always going to be done in just a couple days, just a couple days more.

I just don't know how to handle all this. I'm freaking out because I feel I have no options. I'm not going to be able to meet the deadlines that the city has set for addressing the violations on the house, and I'm going to have a big hole open on my roof all winter.

On the plus side right now, and this is really the only thing on the plus side, the first gutter that was sent out to be repaired was returned today, and looks great. The gutter is copper, and they were able to roll out all the dents, thus that it looks like the rest of the gutters, or perhaps a bit better.

More roof photographs

I actually got some decent looking photographs of the roof yesterday. This one happens to illustrate the chimney and a couple broken slates as well.


This is the area behind the gutter. Note the utter lack of paint. This appears to be the case all the way around the house. Note also that the gutters are soldered together at the seams, which will make removing them somewhat difficult. Ugh.


This illustrates why it is not a good idea to use aluminum for ridges on slate roofs. Copper or galvanized steel is sturdier.


Finally, here's something that I just don't understand at all. If you look at this picture, you'll see, in the first row of slates, two slates that have a wider gap than might normally be expected. In those gaps, you can see what appears to be a short slate. This does not make sense to me. Kurt? Anyone?


Here's a slightly better detail. It occurs in several spots on this, the west side of the roof, across several rows. I can't imagine that these are the result of broken slates being repaired, but I can't think of anything else that it might be, either. Surely there's something that I'm missing here.

Oh where, oh where has my cricket gone?

I knew when we bought this house that there should be a cricket to divert the water around the chimney here. You can't see it in the photograph, but the chimney is about 3-4 feet wide. Thus, there's quite a bit of water hitting it when it rains - and some of that water is leaking in.

Today, I climbed the extension ladder to investigate the condition of our roof.


And then...


The site of the missing cricket.

It seems that there was a cricket to divert the water around this chimney, but at some point in the past, some idiot, likely the one who installed this lovely bit of flashing, removed it. Meh.

If there's a reason why this would be a good thing, please, let me know.

I see dead slates!

When I woke up on Sunday morning and looked out onto the breezeway, on my way downstairs to get the newspaper, this is what I saw. Note the broken slates and the couple hundred pound chunk of ice. Also note the chunk of wood broken off of the porch railing - however, that is minor, in comparison to the roof.



When I went out to get the newspaper, I saw that the gutter on the breezeway had suffered some significant damage, too. Doh!



The worst part, however, is underneath this dormer.



Here's a detail from one side.



And from the other. Note the row of slate hooks. Note all the copper, almost pristine, indicating a relatively recent repair. Clearly we need to address the root cause of this ice damage, namely, the large pieces of ice falling off the house, or this will continue to be a problem for the forseeable future.

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Update:
Dennis M. Crookshanks will be over this afternoon to evaluate what we can do short term to prevent leaks as well as to look at the house and determine what need to be done long term. Here's hoping...

Not quite what I had expected

From the ground, the bit of wrought iron between the chimney and the roof seems appears quite ornamental and of relatively light weight. This appears, on further inspection to be entirely because of the distance from the viewer.



This is where the wrought iron bolts in place in the attic. Note the diameter of the iron. Massive. I doubt that it does much to hold the chimney in place, but it's still a couple hundred pounds of iron, I would imagine. The water stains in the photograph are all dry, and of unknown age.



This is just a wide angle shot of the same, for comparison.

Think happy thoughts...

Last night, I went up in the attic in preparation for the beginning of the insulation installation, which is another story altogether. Due to the rather steep pitch of the roof on my house, the "attic" comprises a large area above the third floor, as well as some small crawlspaces around the edges of the third floor rooms. My intent had been to determine the amount of free space between the joists, but I then became distracted by the structure and the little random things I found up there.



The most significant thing I saw was evidence of significant water damage around both of the chimneys. Fortunately, the leaks appear to have been in the past, as there is plenty of snow on the roof right now, the attic is warmer than it should be, and the areas that are water-stained are dry to the touch. These still present a councern, I assume, but they are not as bad as if the areas were still leaking water.



The water damage by the other chimney appeared to be more significant.



Yes, that is flashing that can be seen through the missing sheathing.



Three of the four ridges also showed some very light evidence of water staining.

Additionally, there are some issues in back where the roof has a bit less of a pitch.

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Insulating all these spaces is going to be a real challenge. There are so many areas that will be somewhere between difficult and impossible to get to. One might consider blowing in insulation, but the spaces in question are so large that a huge quantity of insulation would be required.

At present, we have no insulation at all, which I had planned to address next summer. However, it's been so cold that I really wanted to do something now. I purchased ten sheets of Owens Corning Foamular 150 because sheet insulation seemed the perfect product for sliding into the spaces that would be impossible to roll fiberglass into. It has an R-value of 5 per inch of thickness, which helped cement my decision over blow-in products.

I chose this product over the one offered by Dow (which has an R-value of 5.5 per inch) because it came pre-scored to fit between the studs. Unfortunately, those are new-construction studs. Doh!