(No, it’s not on fire). Longtime readers may remember that our roof didn’t have tar paper underneath the shingles. I finally got around to hiring a competent roofer (Adam and the gang at Integrity Roofing), and guess what? There is tar paper under the shingles. Too bad we didn’t find that out until we had part of the existing shingles off. This posed a difficult conundrum:
- If we replaced just the shingles that had been removed (and the peak shingles, since they need to be removed to replace the roof vents), we’d have a patchwork-quilt-looking roof. This leads to lower resale value, which isn’t a big conern right now. However, ut takes 10+ years for the shingles to weather out, at which point…
- The existing roof was laid in 1991, and it has a design life of about 20 years. By the time the new shingles look like the old ones, it would probably be time to replace the old ones altogether. Making things worse,
- We need to replace or repair the roof over the breakfast area, leading to the patchwork problem again. And…
- Now I can afford to repair the roof. In four or five or ten years, I might not be able to, and I don’t want it to hurt our ability to sell the house later.
So, Adam’s merry men are busily upstairs pulling down the shingles and re-reroofing the house. I am resigned to the idea of buying an upgrade that I really didn’t need but that might come in handy later. Maybe I need an iPod to cheer me up. Yeah, that’s the ticket…
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