stop gap stuffing the gaps

We've long had issues with the pipes that run up to the third floor freezing if temps dip below zero.  This has confounded us, as the pipes are in an interior wall running through the middle of the house.  On the first floor they run through the curved wooden chase that everyone's so fascinated by in the dining room, and continue through the guest bedroom wall and third floor bath.  When the house was built they connected the in-ground cistern to the attic cistern, which provided water pressure through gravity. 

Now that the beadboard ceiling is down on the old front porch the reason for the problem has become a little less mysterious.  For no particular reason, it appears that whoever built it ripped off the moldings from around the base of the roof and box gutters.  This left an enormous gap all the way around the perimeter of the bay, which opened directly into the floor joists of the second floor, explaining both the floor of ice in the guest bedroom and the frozen pipes.  This whole section was closed off only by the new porch roof above, and the beadboard ceiling butting up to the bay below where the moldings should have been.

Obviously we had hoped to have this demoed and repaired in the fall.  While the demo work could easily get done over the winter, there are a lot of elements that need repair once the porch is gone.  In addition to the new shingles over the little bay, there are also bricks to repair where pockets were created for the joists, repairing the box gutter and downspout and refinishing the doors. 

So in the meantime I crept up the ladder before the current storm hit to try and close up what I could.  When I went out it was 63 degrees, when I came in two hours later it was 40, raining, and windy.  You know what spray foam doesn't like?  The cold.  Also, the wind.  The spray foam I had planned on using wasn't curing, and the draft blowing into the house was so strong it was sucking the foam through.  If I had had more time I would have cut foam insulation sheets down to size, but I was in a rush.  And when in a rush one stuffs fiberglass batts wherever they can and hopes for the best.  It has to be better than nothing right?

roofing the beast

Now given that we haven't seen the roof for two weeks with the incredible deep freeze Pittsburgh's been having, a post about shingling the roof seems less than timely.  So be it... 

After much hemming and hawing we ended up going with the GAF Camelot II shingle in charcoal.  We had initially called for the Camelot shingle in Sheffield Black, but that added tremendously to the price for no obvious reason other than color.  This is a slate look shingle, and was well worth the slight price difference over a regular dimensional shingle. 

The entire roof was wrapped in Grace Ice and Water Shield.  This was not only because of the relatively low slope on some of it, but also so that the sheathing would be protected if roofing was delayed. 

We also went ahead and did all the flashing in copper, along with copper ridge caps, valleys and drip edge.  Copper flashing isn't as expensive as most seem to think, and in this age of lifetime rated shingles it's foolish not to use flashings that will last as long as the rest of the roof.  While aluminum doesn't rust, it does get very brittle over time, and really can't compete.  The visible copper really adds to the roof, and is enough of a distraction that the eye doesn't immediately realize the shingles aren't slates. 

There was one complication to using these shingles that no one anticipated however, and that was the tower roof.  Our roofer (Deluca Roofing for the locals, and highly recommended) was familiar with cutting individual shingles to accommodate the curve of the conical roof, but there was no real way to cut and lay these shingles properly since they vary in shape and are layered as you can see in the above photo.  The front of the tower looks fine, and the inconsistencies are mostly hidden on the back.  It's a relatively minor disappointment, but something to consider if you're planning a similar project. 

I also restored the last antique weathervane which is mounted on the tower peak.  It's nowhere near as exceptional as the schoolhouse weathervane, but I deliberately chose something that wouldn't compete with the original spire on the main tower roof.  Not to mention the price was right, and it had it's original mount, which can be quite difficult to find. 

All that's left is installing copper gutters and downspouts.  I'm sure the price on the radius gutter will be nothing short of heart stopping, so we'll kick that can down the road as long as we're able.  If anyone's interested in the planning behind the roof check out the posts from this year.  There was a lot of head-scratching involved in both the products used and the construction.