Roof Repair

Often I come across a slate roof that’s just not worth repairing.   

 

Today I received a call from a local home construction contractor asking if I could give an estimate on installing a new pipe flashing on a plumbing stack he was replacing. He was remodeling a bathroom in a century home nearby. After a cursory inspection of the roof it was decided to replace the stack flashing and also the cast iron soil pipe. The lead stack flashing looked like it was the original and was in terrible shape and there had already been prior repairs.

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Roof Flashing Replacement on a small flat roof over a garage near Cleveland, Ohio.

The original roof counter flashing(shown bottom picture) was leaking at the brick mortar / flashing joint. The construction and installatiion of the flashing was allowing water to slowly seep into and behind the flashing and into the interior of the garage. The flashing metal installed by the previous roofer was bent into a shallow groove cut into the brick mortar joint, and held in place by expanding fasteners drilled through the flashing and into the brick. The mortar used to seal the flashing to the brick was insufficient and poorly installed. The flashing was bent and installed in such a way that it pushed up into the joint area and there was little room to install the mortar properly.The flat roofing material, a modified bitumen roll type material, was in good shape and should last for another 7 yrs or so.

Roof Pitch - How to find the best roof pitch for your metal, slate, tile or asphalt roofing material.

Pitch -  The slope of the rafters as determined by both the rise and the run of the roof.

Rise is the vertical distance between the ends of a slope. Or the distance between the eave(bottom gutter line)  and the ridge or top of the roof.

Run is the horizontal distance between the ends of a slope.

Pitch is commonly referred to as vertical distance in inches to horizontal distance in 12 inches.
For example; 1-12, 3-12, 12-12, or 1 in 12,  12 in 12, etc.

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Snow guard installation on a historic barn restoration.

Restoration and Repairs by
Dennis M. Crookshanks Const. Inc.
12052 Clark Rd.
Chardon, Ohio 44024
(440)285-3200

This barn roof was was recently installed using Vermont green slate and included new half round copper gutters and snow guards. Unfortunately the installation was insufficient to handle a snow slide typical for this region of the country. The roofing contractor did not install enough snow guards, and the ones installed were not strong enough for the conditions. These are standard galvanized steel snow guards. On a lower pitch roof, they would have been sufficient if there had been at least three rows. But on a steep slate roof, at least three rows of a stronger snow guard is required.

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