Matt's New House

Matt's New House
The Story: The Siami's were in town and Matt and his mom were driving around Wheaton looking at houses. As they were out on their hunt, a woman pulled over her car and walked up to Matt's window asking if they were looking to buy a house. When Matt responded yes, she asked if he wanted to come look at a place that they had just moved her in-laws out of. Turns out this 3 bedroom/2.5 bathroom house was just what he was looking for. So with no realtor involved and 2 months later, Matt is officially a homeowner. Aggressive? or Insane?

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

When It Rains, It Pours...

Tasks #8: A New Roof

Remember all that time we spent cleaning out the gutters back in June when Matt closed on the house?  Well the gutters were still leaking and looked pretty beat up and since we had to replace the roof anyway, we decided to put in brand new gutters as well.  At least cleaning the gutters was a good learning/bonding experience (I'm really just saying that to make myself feel better...it was not fun).  Below are several before and after pictures ("Before" on the left and "After" on the right, although it's pretty obvious which are which.)

 Here's the really bad corner of the roof where the shingles were curling up.  Also take note of the soffits/fascia that were replaced.  The fascia is the wood the gutters attach to and the soffits are underneath the overhang.  We had aluminum soffits put in to reduce the amount of maintenance required. (No more peeling paint!)

 The great thing about a new roof is that it increases curb appeal, but is also helping several other aspects of the house.
- Commercial sized downspouts (they're bigger than they were before) help move more water away from the house.
- Repaired gutters and shingles eliminate leaking.
- Ridge vents aid in proper ventilation of the attic space.
- Installed gutter guards to minimize leaves that can fall into the gutters to

We stayed with gray shingles, but upgraded to architectural (versus 3-tab).  The difference can be seen if you look closely at the before and after photos.  3-tab shingles lay flat right next to each other, whereas the architecural shingles add more depth to the house as the overlap slightly, giving the roof some appealing texture.
Architectural shingles are slightly more expensive, but well worth the investment.  We used IKO Cambridge architectural shingles (color - harvard slate), which have a 30 year warranty.

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