The original kitchen roof was made up of tin or lead sheets crimped at the joins, with some type of sealant used at the crimps. Over time, the sealeant had cracked and was allowing water into the beams underneath. The metal roof also trapped the heat during hot days, making the kitchen very VERY hot. So we tore off the old roof (with help from Tony's brother and dad), and reroofed it with fiberglass shingles. Now it's actually cooler in the kitchen than outside!

Here is what we found when the metal roofing material was torn off. No moisture barrier was under the metal, which explained why our roof leaked! Most of the boards were in pretty good shape - we only had to replace two at the edge that had some water damage. See the next picture for a closeup shot.

This is a closeup of what the roof looked like under the tin sheets. Note the holes in the cotton insulation - these are burrows that were made by mice!

In order to get all of the metal sheeting off, some of the house siding had to come off. Don't worry - we've replaced it with white wood siding! Here you can see that the newer section of the house was insulated with fiberglass.

This page was last modified : November 18, 2004