Our house had a 25-year roof put on by the builder in 2007. Last year we discovered some serious leaks in the roof. Sadly we had just put in a solar panel system that had to be removed first. It took us 6 months to find someone to do that job, the company that did the original placement jerked us around for 4 months before we gave up on them. Oh, and apparently now many solar installation companies now have a clause that sez they will remove and then put back up the panels for roof repair. Who knew?
We had to replace nine 4X8 foot plywood pieces because the leakage damaged them. It was amazing watching the repairmen schlep the wood up the ladder without a lift. The home across the street had huge lift equipment to lift the shingles, wood, and such to the top of that house. There was no metal flashing on our original roofing job. Now we have metal flashing all away around the roof and in the joints where the roof changes planes, and such.
We decided to do copper metal roofs on the two small roof parts and a 40-year shingle for the rest of the roof. We discovered the leak because we suddenly had mice in the house and that had to be fixed too. And during the mouse (actually) extermination, we also discovered the dryer vent stopped in the attic so there was mold everywhere. That mitigation required us to clean and treat the attic and crawlspace, replace all insulation, put a sump pump in the crawlspace and fix the venting.
We also had all the old vents removed and put a ridge vent that runs the length of the house so the roof looks much cleaner. There were nine 8 X 10′ vents and now the venting is invisible. Bonus, the venting is at the absolute top of the attic space so there is no heat pooling up at the top like there was with the old vents. They also painted all the exhaust pipes from the plumbing and heating black, so they disappeared from view too.
A normal roofing job with no extras goes for around $16,000. With the solar removal, reinstallation, metal roof, panel replacement and flashing upgrade we spent $30,000. But, it looks like this will be the last roof we put on in the ~30 years of life we have left.
The Bis Key Chronicles 