Gutters for the new Roof

As a part of getting a new roof, they took off the old rain gutters.  Then they put on the new roof.  Today we got the new rain gutters to replace the old ones.  That was part of the contract for the new roof.

The gutters are the seamless type that are created on-site.  They workmen first measured everything.  Then they constructed the gutters and put them on the driveway.

They installed the rain gutters on the house.

and then went back and installed the downspouts.

The last step was to attach special deflectors where the roof has a "valley" that focuses a lot of water into one spot.  The deflector stops it from shooting over the gutter.

These gutters are 4 inches across, which is what was there before, and works for almost all the rain we get.  The downspouts are 4 inches too.

Fan Vent for the Central Bathroom

When the house was built, each of the three bathrooms had a heater installed in the ceiling, near the toilet.  The heater was just an electric heater -- no fan or vent.

We have replaced the heaters in two of the 3 bathrooms with a fan vented to the outdoors.  We wanted to do the same in the central bathroom.  The other two were relatively easy, in that the bathrooms were on a gabled roof wall, and I could run the vent right out thru the side wall.

But the central bathroom was a different story.  The closest outside wall is onto the deck, and so the vent would have to go thru the roof, or down onto the deck.  I wanted to keep the roof as simple and clean as possible, so the deck seemed the best bet. I found a vent that would work. Home Depot, $15.62.

So I removed the heater to expose the wiring.  I bought a new fan. Broan InVent A80 Ventilation Fan from Home Depot. $61.02

and cut a hole in the ceiling for it.

I also cut a circular hole for the soffit vent in the roof over the deck.

Now all I needed was a flexible duct to connect the two.  I went upscale and got an insulated duct.  Again Home Depot. $32.86 for a 4 inch by 12 foot flexible duct.  

But try as I may, I was not able to get the duct up one hole and thru the attic to the other hole. There was a lot of insulation, plus ceiling rafters, roof joists, or is it ceiling joists and roof rafters. In particular, a valley rafter made it even more difficult. 

But we were having the roof replaced at this same time, so I convinced the roofers to open up the attic from the roof for a short time after they had taken off the old roof, and before they started with the new roof.

That made it easy to see how the duct should be routed from the deck to the bathroom.

After the roof was done, I could then thread the duct thru the hole in the deck roof

cut the duct to the right length, and attach it to the soffit vent.

and then screw that in place.

The inside was a bit more work.  It required fixing the sheetrock hole to fit exactly the size of the metal box for the fan, and removing the "popcorn" ceiling texture that had been left under the heater.  So, sheetrock repair and re-texture.

Then, we could affix the metal housing for the fan.

Attach the duct to the duct connector, and wire the power to the wiring plate and attach those to the metal housing.

Then insert the fan blower and plug it into the wiring plate.

 We could then caulk and reseal the box, do a bit more texture work on the sheetrock, and paint the ceiling to match the previous.  Heavy Cream.

Wait for that to dry and attach the fan grille cover.

New Roof

After the last ice storm, I noticed some wear on the roof, particularly in the back, on the side near where the elm trees used to be.  Not sure when it happened, but it suggested that we may want to replace the roof.

 Also, as I mentioned in the post about removing the solar panels,  we have been having trouble with the solar panels, and are going to replace them.  Putting on new solar panels would require a new roof.

So we need a new roof.  

And as it happens, one of the neighbors was getting a new roof, and then another one, so I started with those two companies: Linear Roofing and Tarrant Roofing.  Both looked to be able to do a good job.  The main issue is cost.  But the neighbors were getting their roofs replaced partly by insurance, due to hail damage. We have a very high deductible for the house -- around $16K, probably 2% -- but the roof was coming it at $23K to $26K, so if we could get the insurance company to agree that we needed a new roof -- due to the same hail storm that damaged our neighbors roofs -- then our cost for the roof would be fixed at our deductible, and the insurance company would pay the rest, in which case the price difference, if any between the different companies would be irrelevant.  So we went with Linear.

Our insurer, State Farm, on the other hand, felt that although the roof of the neighbor up the street was totaled by the hail storm, we had minimal damage -- $1491 to be exact -- so they were not going to be paying anything for it.

The contract with Linear was for $26,700 to remove the existing roof and replace it with the same basic thing, plus gutters.

They sent a crew on 29 March 2023 to take down the old gutters.  Then another crew on 12 April to replace the roof.  They began by removing the old shingles.

Then they removed the old tar paper, getting down to the plywood roof decking.

This got us down to just the bare roof.

On this bare plywood, they put down new tar paper.

And then new shingles

The shingles are "Resawn Shake" color of CertainTeed Landmark brand Fiber Glass Asphalt Self-Sealing Shingles.

It took about a day to remove the old roof and put on the new roof.

New gutters to follow.