Can you guess what this is?
Nope, it’s not a volcanic landscape or an electron microscopic view of a human scab. Nope, it’s the south side of my roof. Pretty scary eh?
The south side of the house is the new addition. This is our third summer here at the lake and when we bought this house the agent said that the addition was added eight years earlier. Which would mean that the addition was built eleven years ago. She also assured us that all of the upgrades (furnace, electrical, windows etc.) had all been upgraded when this addition was built. I am now convinced that she had a wooden nose.
Last March we had a cold spell and one day couldn’t figure out why the house didn’t seem to be warming up. We called a repairman in to look at the furnace and were told that the heat exchange box was cracked. This, I’ve learned is a big deal because they had to tag my furnace and notify the gas company. The gas company gave me 10 days to have the furnace replaced or they would shut the gas off to my house. Of course I freaked. I was led to believe that I was buying a home with an 8 year old furnace. Turns our the furnace was more than 12 years old. So eight weeks before my son’s wedding I had to buy a new furnace.
You know I never really noticed anything seriously wrong with the roof until we started noticing gravelly bits on the ground when sweeping up outside this spring. Lise got the ladder out to clean out the eaves and said that she thought something was wrong with the roof. We both saw a big patch of curing shingles and decided that we’d start saving for a new roof next year.
Well, in the last two weeks we noticed two, almost dinner-plate sized stains on the ceiling in two different parts of the house. Conclusion: new roof can’t wait.
So this week I have been researching roofing materials, methods, standards and getting estimates. I hate this. I always feel like I’m getting taken. I always feel like if I were a guy I’d get a fair shake. If I were a guy they wouldn’t try to bamboozle me with “trade-speak”. I know that I’m a big gal and shouldn’t whine but I want Mike Holmes to swoop in with his Dewalt power tools and rescue me.