Living in Dryden: Re-roofed

October 13, 2007

Re-roofed

My house had a questionable roof when I bought it in 1999. It didn't seem to leak, but it didn't look likely to last, either.

The old roof, looking less than perfect.

I've thought about replacing it for years, and even had some estimates done, but I didn't get around to actually having it replaced until now. After years of thinking that I'd go with asphalt architectural shingles, I changed my mind and went with metal. I hadn't even liked metal at the time I bought the house, but it's seemed more and more sensible as I've looked deeper into roofing. It lasts, it's much easier to do rainwater collection if I want to, and it's a good surface for mounting solar hot water or solar panels as well. It definitely wouldn't be the only metal roof in the neighborhood.

I'd heard good things about Countrywide Metal Roofing, based in Romulus, and their estimate was reasonable as well. (It didn't include gutters, which I'll probably deal with next year.) They dropped the materials for this project off in late September, and called yesterday to find out if it was okay to work here on a Saturday, as they're catching up from a few rainy days. It was fine with me, though I was a little surprised that they wanted to start at 6:30am, in the cold and dark.

They got here just around 6:30, and got started. First they had to tear off the old asphalt, leaving the bottom layer of cedar shingles (the original roof) as the bottom from which they'd rebuild.

Tearing off two layers of asphalt roofing.

Once the tearing-off was done, the rest of the day was installation of the metal roofing and carting the asphalt shingles to the dumpster they'd had delivered here.

Installing the new metal roof.