My friend, Keyonte, texted me some photos yesterday of a garage he had re-sided. It looked fantastic, and he mentioned the guy does roofs too.
Great, I thought… I need some of those!
I gave him a call and we decided to go out looking at our house on Algonac that we just recently gained possession of and the McCarty House. I’d already had one person out to quote Algonac the other day. He said it has three layers of shingles on it and would be about $7,000 to get it done.
That’s a bit higher than I was expecting, but after seeing it today, I get it. The roof is in terrible shape and it’s bigger than I remembered. So when Keyonte’s guy Sam looked it over and quoted it at $8,000 I knew we were in the ballpark. That’s not terrible news.
That came when Sam took a look at the McCarty House. The flashing is failing on the chimney, which is not uncommon in Detroit. Most of these roofs were done by inexperienced crews that were more concerned with making a buck than doing it right. You can almost always bet on flashing issues and be right.
But beyond that, the shingles in the valleys are failing and essentially disintegrated. The wood siding on the left and right portions of the house is rotting, especially near the roof line, allowing a path for water to enter the home. And to top it all off, it seems the front of the house was re-roofed at one point. The shingles on the back are clearly different and older.
Oof. I was not expecting to have to re-roof McCarty. I knew it likely needed some repair, but not this.
I was pretty sure Kaitlin was going to kill me, because this house has been an absolute nightmare and money pit. And we’re nowhere near the finish line.
But she was pretty cool about it. In fact, while we’re doing those two we figured we mine as well do Farmbrook. That one is small and straightforward, so hopefully a bit cheaper.
I’m trying to find a skilled roofer that isn’t going to break the bank. I’m not the type to do things half-ass, and we plan on keeping these houses for a long time. So I want them done right.
But we’re definitely pushing the limits in terms of what’s left in our bank account. Hopefully we can sell the Fire House and get some cash there. I’m also hoping we see a tax refund this year to add a little more dry powder.
You know you’re scraping the bottom when you’re banking on a tax refund. Woof!