How disruptive is it to get a new roof?

When he goes up there, if it is bat insulation it should be "faced" on the bottom side. The facing is a vapor barrier (and should always be installed facing into the living area!). Have him wear gloves (Most of that stuff is fiberglass and you can get little fiberglass slivers which are painful and hard to get out)and lift up a section of the batting and it should say on it what the R rating is.

If your roof has a low pitch it might be a good time to add insulation if needed. If they are going to open the entire roof it is easier to do it then than to crawl around up there with a closed up roof. If they aren't replacing the roof decking (the wood under the shingles) then it won't help any.

I think it's a steep pitch but I'm not certain what "low pitch" means. The old roof is at a 45 degree angle (!). The first roofing guy was saying that anything over a 12/8 ratio is considered steep (or maybe 8/12 -- 12 horizontal inches, 8 vertical inches), and ours is 12/12.

On the new roof, there is plywood over the joists, and then shingles et all on top of that. On the old roof, it's just shingles.

Oh and there are two layers of shingles on the old roof. The older layer is brittle and generally done for.

It's all about roof pitch!



What I call "low" they call "slight".

It's measured as rise(vertical)/run(horizontal) with 12" as the run standard.

Cool.

So we're as steep as it gets.

We have R-30!

E.G. took a look around up there (attic) and was happy with what he saw overall. Too hot, even on a not-very-hot day, but no signs of beasties (bats, rats), no leakage, etc. One of the dormers in sozlet's room sprung a leak after a truly torrential rainstorm, our first real leak in this house (there was this enormous saggy blister behind the paint, E.G. held up a bucket and popped it and water came gushing out, then it kept dripping until a bit after the rain stopped). Either one of the roofing guys sabotaged it when he was up there to make sure we felt some urgency, or this is good timing.

All the roofers (3 so far) have said whoa, that's one messed-up roof. (The old one). Seems like we've been lucky to NOT have any leaks until now.

The guy who came today seemed really good, we're hoping his estimate isn't in the stratosphere. Evidently this is a complicated roof, and the pitch doesn't help. (It's not 12/12 after all, it's a 16/b]-inch rise, 12-inch run.)

16/12? Yoikes! You wouldn't catch me up there! lol At that sort of angle it is hard to move arounda nd you can't stack materials up there to work with. I'd expect some scaffoliding to get setup when they start.

Nice to see that the R-30 is already there though! That should be one less cost for you.

Wowsa!

Not the whole thing, but most of the old roof.

Yeah, that's definitely going to add to the price. One of the guys said that they will have to use twice as many nails as usual on that section to make sure the shingles stay on -- gravity's working against them rather than for them, basically.

They did say, on the other hand, that the pitch could have something to do with how well the roof is functioning compared to how it looks -- water just rolls right off.

Nails are cheap! A box of 5,000 for a pneumatic nailer is $40. That cost will be pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.

When do you get your 2 other estimates?

I'm not sure. E.G.'s handling the scheduling. We both really like the third guy. That's the one that was recommended by the people who did the addition to our house, and also recommended by a neighbor. They basically don't advertise -- just go by word of mouth. The guy was by far the most professional and knowledgeable of the three so far. Also, E.G. asked about patching our current leak, and the guy said "we can be out here in 2 weeks." E.G. was like, that long to patch the leak? and the guy said that they could be out here to do the WHOLE ROOF in 2 weeks.

Anyway, I think we're both ready to go with these guys unless the quote is significantly higher than the first two, but will get a couple more estimates just to be thorough about it.

all seems good soz fishin has it covered. Check Insurance, warrenty, service, and safety record. Get a description of safe work practices from the contractor.A guide from Aust is available here.
http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/resources/file/ebcdf3435dd38b2/prevention_falls_roofs.pdf He may have insurance but you still dont want his men getting hurt. We would have a scaffold around the roof edge so that if you do fall thats as far as you go and/or safety harnesses and ropes.

Double the nails because of gravity doesnt excite me much. Less nails is usually better on any job.

Just because 2 nails are good doesnt mean 3 will be better.

That was an aside, I probably gave it more weight than it deserved. Main point -- complicated roof (lots of weird angles and dormers) + a lot of area + steep pitch = expensive.

I thought it might have been. He probably meant it some kind of joke.

Unfortunately any house that reeks of atmosphere, eats money.

We are in the process of having our roof redone. They are pounding away even as I type.

We have a weird roof too - lots of strange angles, steep pitch, ect, much like your roof.

For us it has been insanely disruptive. They told us six days to do the work. They ripped off about 1/3 of the roof and then the rains started so they took a week off. Then they came back, finished that part and ripped another 1/3 off. Then the rains started.

We've had a dumpster in our driveway for more than two weeks and we're probably looking at another week. Their equipment van has been parked in front of the house the whole time. When they are here they need a place to park their trucks. We have to park across and down the street. Not fun.

They've been pretty good about picking up after themselves but there have been stretches of days where our yard is completely unusable and half of our windows are boarded over. Very gloomy.

We didn't have much choice in when they could start our roof because we really needed it done.

My advice -- if you have any kind of lattitude regarding time-lines, make sure they get started during cooperative weather!

Yikes!

They're coming next week! Hope the weather cooperates.

We are so, so happy with the company so far. We know a person who used them recently, she heaped them with praise. We called several references, all universally appreciative. They say 2 days. Fingers crossed.

The boarding-up-windows part is new to me, hadn't thought about that. Makes sense.

Just checked extended forecast -- looks like it's supposed to be drippy between now and then, but sunny or just cloudy the days they're supposed to be here.

Who knows this far in advance, though, right?

I think the time to do ours is long because not only do they have to rip of the old shingles but also the old wood underneath it before replacing both. They've also had to rebuild parts of the roof structure.

I guess it was more like building a new roof rather than fixing up the old one.

I can't blame them for the weather and I understand they can't work when it's raining but I'm still feeling a little grumbly when I think about how much it's costing and how long it's taking.

Fer sure!

Yeah, we don't know what's gonna happen when it comes to the whatchamacallit -- the wood that the shingles go on top of. The roofers think it will be OK, and this new leak is the only one we're aware of. But if that stuff needs to be replaced, that's definitely more time and money.