We are going to *need* a new roof soon. We bought our house 5 years ago and were told that it was approaching the end of its life. We haven’t had any leaks anything but it’s something that we want to do before we are forced to do it.
Here are some of the factors that I keep getting stuck and going around in circles on the internet trying to come up with the “right,” thing to do.
- We hate our roofline. It has almost no pitch and it has rolled roofing.
- We would like to install solar and batteries.
- We have a detached garage that wasn’t built to code (found out after we bought it) that will need to be torn down and replaced. There is a breezeway that connects the roof between the garage and the house.
- We ultimately want to create an attached garage and shift the front door to the actual front of the house. I think that we’d like to add a second story over the garage or at least a big deck.
All of these factors have me hesitant to drop a lot of money on a new 30+ year roof when we hope to completely change the exterior of the house in 5-10 years.
The house was built in ‘47 and we did a massive remodel on the interior when we bought it. Many elements of which didn’t turn out how we wanted because it was 2021 ($$$) and our contractor had to dip out ¾ of the way through the project (he got recruited for a great opportunity with a startup. I promise we weren’t horrible clients who got fired by our contractor).
This is our home for at least the next 20 years until the kids finish high school. Maybe we will move when we retire and they’ve moved out; but we don’t plan to go anywhere.
We just learned a lot of hard lessons with that first remodel. I don’t want to waste money on something that we are likely to have to replace or re-do sooner than its intended lifespan. I also don’t want to end up with massive water damage or wasting money on a gimmicky product to extend the life of our roof.
We do live in Northern UT and get snow (usually). Not feet; but 6-10” in a couple of storms each season.
If you were in our position, then what would you do?
What options are there to get us another 5-ish years while we save up for this big reno?
Are there roofing options that could easily be modified without having to completely re-do it? Such that when we do build an attached garage and change the pitch of the roof we would just be able to add to or reuse what we put on this year?
Is changing the pitch more or less labor/cost intensive than it is in my mind?
I know that the ultimate answer is to find a general contractor and come up with solid plans. However, I just lost my Dad and don’t have the capacity for that right now AND I know it is a real gamble to just leave the roof be for another season.
Thank you for your patience and time in reading this post.
I appreciate you.