Raze the Roof

Last weekend we got a new roof after we sprung a leak the week before.  

To refresh your memory, this is what our old roof looked like--the original roof!

Here are some pictures of the new roof (excuse the finger in the shot, its not mine it's the roofer's :)

They had to completely strip the old tin roof and replace it with new (modern) material

These pictures were taken when the roof was nearly done.  After these shots were taken, the roof was painted.

Anyway, I'll let the pics from my roofer's website do the talking since I'm not expert:

Here's hoping that our new roof will last us another 100 years!

When it Rains, It Pours...

Apparently in my closet :(

Let me start from the beginnning. 

Unbeknownst to us, last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning the DC area was about to experience some very heavy rain fall.  We are no strangers to the weird weather.  From Snowmaggedon two years ago to the hurricane winds of this past summer, DC weather runs that gamut and our house has been able to handle it all...until now.

While Justin and I were sleeping I woke up at 5:00am when I heard a noise.

plip, plip, plip

I smacked Justin to to wake him up (I swear between him and Louie, they can both sleep through anything!). He turned on the light and we looked around. It wasn't Louie, but it was coming from the room.  I walked toward my closet and sure enough there was water dripping from the ceiling, which was obviously coming from the roof. Arrrggghh!  This was something I defnitely didn't feel like dealing with especially at 5:00am.  After finding the leak, we moved all my clothes into the next room, put wastebaskets and towels in my closet, and hoped for the best--after all, we had to go to work. 

This a view of the leak in the closet looking up

While I was at work I imagined the entire ceiling caving in on our bedroom, but luckily the rain didn't seem to get any harder as the leak was contained in that area.

Over the weekend we got a roofer to check out the damage.  When he arrived he didn't even bother to look at the leak.  He brought out his super tall ladder and went straight to the roof.

When he came down I asked him what was wrong with our roof.  He basically said that it was the original roof and the entire thing needed to be replaced. Wow, since our house was built in 1910 I'm surprised that the roof has lasted that long!

This didn't really come to a surprise to Justin and I because when we did our home inspection, the inspector said that our roof was "at the end of its useful life"  and that it would have to be replaced soon, or given the current situation--now.

Here's a picture of our roof taken from our home estimate last year:

The roofer then gave us an estimate, which all things considered was cheaper than we thought.  We were expecting a new roof to cost somewhere in the $10K range, but let me just tell you that the number that he gave is definitely no drop in the bucket!