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Chimneys Even if you don’t plan to use a stove or fireplace with your chimney, you may still need it, for not only may the central heating system or the gas hot-water heater be vented out the chimney, but a chimney is often a part of your house’s beauty. Even though as a functional chimney it's worthless, it may be an integral part of the house, and thus ought not to be removed. Because chimneys are freestanding and thus exposed to the frost at night and the heat of the sun in the afternoon, chimneys are prone to many disorders, however, including loose mortar, missing bricks, or, often, a lean, usually to the east or north, whichever way the broad dimension of the chimney is oriented. The best remedy for a deteriorated chimney is to disassemble it, brick by brick, down to the roof and start over again with the same bricks and new mortar. You will have to build a scaffold around the chimney big enough to hold all the bricks that you remove. Try to get a helper on the ground to send you up tools and mortar in a bucket attached to a rope. This is a back-breaking job— and not for anyone who fears heights—but it can be done. Look at old chimneys of the right period for examples to follow and you might even improve on its original beauty. If you put a chimney tile into the new chimney, it will probably make your job last longer than the original did. Flash the chimney where it adjoins the roof, going from the lowest point, up-roof. Making Old Chimneys Safe The rest of the chimney, from the roof on down to the basement, may not be much better than the part that sticks up. Peering down it with a powerful flashlight on an overcast day may give you some idea of its condition. You should examine your chimney thoroughly, particularly if you have a wood furnace, woodstove, or a working fireplace. If your chimney has a file-lined flue, then you are probably safe in using it. If the chimney is unlined, the slightest hole in the mortar may produce a draft that will cause the flames from an overheated fireplace to go out through the hole and burn your house like an over-roasted marshmallow on a skewer. Every appliance, such as an oil burner, a gas burner, and a woodstove, must have a separate flue. It is possible to line old chimneys with stainless steel chimney liner. This job is best done by professionals. Some installers pour a special cement between the liner and the masonry, for additional protection. Be certain that the juncture of the stovepipe and the top of the stove or fireplace is securely sealed so that all the smoke and heat goes up the pipe, otherwise, some of the flame could go up the outside of the pipe, seek a draft through a gap in the mortar, and start a fire. If you get professionals to reline your chimney, I recommend obtaining a guarantee from them so that if the liner isn’t solid and a fire results, you have legal recourse. For further information on safe chimney installations, obtain a recent code book from the National Fire Protection Association (available from chimney and stove suppliers and installers) and inquire about local codes at your fire department. When box is plugged into chimney, bend overlapping flashing slightly downward over the outside of the chimney. How to Cap a Chimney Unused chimneys can be capped with tin or aluminum flashing material: • To keep birds, beasts, and leaves out • To prevent water damage caused by rain running down to the bottom • To preserve the life of the chimney Don’t try to nail the flashing to the chimney, as this may break the mortar and weaken the chimney. Make a wooden box about one inch smaller than the hole. Nail a piece of tin slightly larger than the chimney to the box. Plug the box into the chimney like a wine cork into a bottle. Bend the overhanging edges slightly downward over the outside of the chimney. The Roof Putting on a new roof can seem a formidable project to a person who has never laid a roof before. The first decision that faces you is whether, indeed, you really need a new roof. You don't need a new roof just because: • You have a leak here and there: You may need only to find and stop the leaks. • A dozen shingles blew off: You may need only to replace a dozen shingles • Leaks occur around a chimney or a dormer. You may need only to improve or replace the flashing • You need a roof on an addition: You may need only to roof the worn section. Roll roofing (roofing material available in along,. rolled sheet rather than bundles of shingles) wears out more quickly than shingles, and roofing on a flatter roof often wears out more quickly than roofing on the steep, main roof of the house. South-facing roofs wear out faster than north-facing roofs. You do need a new roof if: • Roofing is so brittle that you can’t slide patches under it • Valleys in the roof have worn through and are leaking • Huge sections of the roof have blown off, making a new roof a more sensible investment than tedious patching efforts • Repeated new leaks appear after old ones are stopped If all this overwhelms you, don’t be afraid to call on a roofing. salesperson, even if you plan to do your own roofing. At least, you will know how much you are saving by doing the work yourself. At most, you may discover that the savings aren't worth the trouble of doing your own work. If a roofing salesperson tries to convince you against your better judgment that you need a new roof, take the advice with a grain of salt, and always get a second opinion—if possible, from someone who doesn’t stand to make a profit. Patching Old Roofs There are two solutions to most things having to do with roof leaks. One of them is the substance called roofing tar, or coating, a brush-on tar that really seals up a roof. It is available plain or mixed with aluminum paint. It is especially valuable for painting over leaky joints in roll roofing or over all nailheads in a section where you suspect that you have a leak around one nailhead in a hundred and don’t have a ghost of an idea which one it's . Roofing tar goes on best when the roof is so hot you can’t stand to work on it, although it will work almost as well when it's a little cooler than that. If you are forced to put it on in cool weather, try getting the tar warmed up to 90° F. before you spread it. Be careful in heating it though: If it ever gets so hot that it catches fire, you’ll never put the fire out. The other solution to a leaky roof is roofing cement, a fiber-filled compound intended to fill up holes and patch damaged places. It does not last forever but will do a marvelous job on many different kinds of leaks for a good number of years. Both of these products have a mysterious quality that causes them to jump out and attach themselves to your clothes when you seemingly haven't even been near the can. and experience shows that the better condition your clothes are in, the more easily they can jump out of the can and affix themselves to you. Wear old clothes and shoes when doing any sort of roofing patch. Finding the Leak Look for suspicious nailheads, missing shingles, or flashing at the spot just above the leak. Examine the area all the way up the roof from the leak to the ridge. Leaks often run down a rafter before they decide to let go and drop in the most inconvenient spot in the room—on your bed, in your closet, or on an antique velvet chair. Tar anything that looks suspicious and wait for the next rainstorm. Don’t let failure stop you from trying one more time. Often it will take three or four tries before you find the right spot. Tips on Fixing Leaks • If you have missing shingles on the roof, glue some new ones with roofing cement. • Use roofing cement or tin flashing around chimneys and dormers where water is leaking in. New Roofing: Shingles It may be that you can't talk your way out of it and you are faced with the stark reality of putting on a new roof. The difficulty lies more in the sheer size of the project than in its demand for any particular skills. Let’s take it step-by-step. First, you must determine whether or not you have a solid deck under the roof. Sometimes you may find a wood shingle roof laid on lath down under many subsequent layers of roofing. If this is the case, you have three alternatives, in order from easiest, to best and most expensive: 1. Leave all roofing in place and lay your new shingles with nails long enough to go through all the layers into the boards. 2. Remove all roofing material, including the original wooden shingles, and then cut boards to fit in the openings between the slats. This is especially sensible if you have access to low- or no cost, secondhand boards. Use boards that are approximately the right size, and cut them in with a sharp carpenter’s axe. Work from the ridge down, so that you can stand in the spaces between the boards as if they were steps of a ladder. 3. Remove all roofing material, including the original wooden shingles but not the lath, sheathe with plywood, and then lay a new roof over it as if you were roofing a new house. Although 1/2-inch plywood is sufficient, 5/8-inch is better. Sometimes particle board is used, but it's not very strong and it's very heavy and hard to handle, especially at roof height. Warning: When you remove layers of roofing, watch your step! One rotted spot and you can easily fall right through. Tips for an Easier Roofing Job • Obtain several ladders, so that you aren’t constantly moving a ladder. Better still, rent scaffolding or a power lift. A lift is helpful for getting all those shingles up to the roof. • Use a square, pointed shovel or an old-fashioned ice scraper to remove old shingles. • Rent or borrow an open trailer to park under the eaves to catch the trash. Picking up old shingles and other debris is almost as much work a stripping the roof in the first place. • Cover the open roof with polyethylene plastic before you quit for the day; an unexpected heavy rain could ruin all of the ceilings in the house if you don’t. Once the surface is ready for roofing, it can be protected for a week or two with tarpaper, stapled to the bare wood. • The best roofs are laid in hot weather—hot enough to sit on the roof but not so hot (and soft) that it burns you or is easily marked as you stand on it. • In cold weather leave 3/16-inch spaces between each strip of shingle. If you don’t, they will expand and buckle when they heat up. • The traditional method for scaffolding is to tie a 2x4 to a wire (of the kind shingles are bundled with) and nail it to the roof for a toe-hold. Shingles are laid over the wire with the 2x4 on top of the finished roof below. When the toe-hold needs to be moved up the roof, the wire is simply cut just above the edge of the shingle from which it protrudes. It is much easier — and safe to buy or rent a set of roof jacks. • Give careful attention to starting the shingles on the horizontal chalk lines. Many roofers stagger the slots because perfectly straight rows of slots tend to channel the water and erode more quickly. If you do line them up however, they must be straight along the vertical as well as the horizontal chalk line, so that all the “cut-outs” of the shingles line up as you look up the roof from the ground. • The best way to cut the shingle ends is score the back side of the shingle with a box cutters then bend it so that it breaks on the score. • Flash all chimneys and dormers as you go. • Use heavy roofing or flashing material for the valleys, which get special wear. Alternative Roofing Materials: Barn Tin and Roll Roofing Another kind of roofing that's frequently used today, is barn tin, sometimes called 5v or 7v roofing. It is available with both galvanized and aluminum finishes, as well as more expensive colored varieties. You can save that cost by using the galvanized or aluminum version, letting it weather for about a year, and then painting it. Many of the older roofs were made of tern metal (tin-plated steel, from which the term tin roof comes). Although it looked somewhat like barn tin, it was soldered in place and marvelously waterproof. Standing-seam, tin-plate roofing is still available and is one of the best roofs you can buy. You can use 5v barn tin on a house roof as long as you are sure that every nail is snugly into the wood and all mistakes are filled with a squirt of silicone sealing compound. Formerly barn-tin roofs were fastened down with lead nails, but now nails with neoprene washers are used. I recommend adding a polyethylene plastic liner to keep small leaks in joints from causing trouble during driving rain storms. Flat-roofed additions might be covered with double-lap roll roofing, such as is used on porch roofs. Double-lap roll roofing is an improvement over the old roll roofing because no nails show and there are at least two layers of roofing over the entire surface. Ornamentation on Porches In houses built anytime from the 1830s through the end of the nineteenth century, the peak of the gable was often decorated with patterns sawed out of wood or with a combination of cutouts, turnings, and balls. These decorations may or may not have matched the motif of the porch gingerbread. Houses built in the 1920s often featured heavy brackets along the cornices under the eaves or balustrades on the porch roof. Many old houses are missing their distinctive decoration, however, and will be greatly enhanced if your loving care returns some of their earlier ornament. Beware, however, that you do choose appropriately. Highly decorated nineteenth-century houses appear in a bewildering array of styles—Gothic Revival, Italian Villa, Second Empire, Eastlake, Stick, Queen Anne, and Shingle are among the most popular. Cut-out or turned wooden decorations are quite suitable for some of these, but be guided by the surviving ornament on your house or on other similar houses in your neighborhood. Late nineteenth-century ornamentation on a Federal period house, a colonial New England weathervane on a mid- nineteenth-century Italian villa, or Pennsylvania Dutch decoration on a Greek Revival house are all equally offensive. If style is confusing to you—and it's a complex subject—talk to preservationists and restoration experts, get some style books out of the library, visit as many old houses as you can, and soon you will find that your eye is becoming trained to the many nuances of American architectural styles. In the process, not only will your own house renovation be better informed, but you will gain a greater appreciation for the history in houses all around you. Some Styles of American Architecture:
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