And now, one of the biggest expenses in my house fixup. The pool was probably the biggest, but this one is right up there. It’s the replacement of the roof. I eventually settled on a quote for $9600 from the same contractor that has been doing my other work.
The roof was last replaced in 2005, right after the rash of hurricanes. Things have changed in those 15 years. I got dropped from one insurance carrier because of the age of my roof. Not specifically because of the age, but because of the age and the fact the roof is 3-tab shingles. No one uses 3-tag shingles anymore. Everything is now Architectural shingles.
The workers showed up around 8 in the morning and immediately got to work. I was not prepared for how loud the whole removal process would be. Then rain was threatening in the area, but the foreman explained that as long as they got the moisture barrier in place, things would be fine. There were some rotted panels and other wood that needed replaced. Who would have figured? I didn’t know.
There were storms around and when i went to lunch, there were showers just little ways down the road. In my area, that means nothing though. When I got back from lunch, there hadn’t been any rain at the house and the foreman told me they were finishing up the “dry-in” barrier and after that, it didn’t matter if it rained or not. The crew worked late, almost 12 hours, and they got quite a bit done.
The next morning they came back and finished up with more noise.
After it was all done, how was the result? Well, most noticeably, the attic doesn’t pop anymore at night when it’s cooling down. That must be a telling sign that there is less heat buildup. I did climb up on the roof a couple days after and put my face near one of the new vents. I could feel the hot attic air streaming out of it. I gained two additional vents on my roof, so there must be some benefit to that as well. The vents are a different design and they seem like they’re designed to not allow storm wind and rain to blow into the vent – important for hurricane country.
So, with the thicker tiles, the modern, improved barriers, the additional vents, and the light color tile, this must all be adding up to a much cooler house. Time will tell if my electric bill goes down. I recently changed the standard house temp from 72 to 75, so that will also help things.
This is the one last major item to be fixed to make the house reasonably marketable, should it come to that.