Starting at the Top

My house has all sorts of things wrong with it, from leaks and drips to loose wooden railings, rotting floors and an outdated kitchen. And that's besides the projects I would like to tackle like new paint, a coat closet, and remodeling the bathrooms. Unfortunately, I am not particularly handy fixing things and I don't understand everything that is involved in any one project. Like other home owners, I am more likely to focus on simple aesthetic things like curtains and pillows, that solving HVAC problems.

While my ideas were running off in hundreds of directions, I decided to invite my friend Marni to perform sort of a whole house audit. We went through the house from the basement to the third floor and talked about all the things that needed fixing. She is a wonderful listener as well as being very knowledgeable about construction projects.

Her advice at the end of the day was so sensible, I could have figured it out myself if I wasn't so scattered: start with the roof. The roof is the one thing in the house you really want to be able to trust, and we are at the end of this roof's lifespan. Until I fix the roof, I promised Marni I would stop drawing new floorplans and picking out paint chips. First things first!

We have a flat roof like most rowhouse owners. Ours is the older asphalt and tar system and we have a fair amount of ponding (water that remains on a roof and needs to evaporate.) We also have some leaks through the internal roof downspouts that have ruined our family room ceiling and nearly the TV.

Now I am investigating roofing materials for flat roofs, and thinking about adding a roof deck while I'm at it since our outdoor space is so limited. We are considering rubber membrane type roofing and also roofing that doubles as a deck surface. Every roofer seems to have some proprietary name for the type of roof they install, so I haven't figured out how to compare them. Send me your experiences with roofing if you have some to share.