an expensive discovery

[15_the_circle]

yesterday afternoon while up on the porch roof to take a closer look at the new old windows it occurred to me to investigate the dormer roofs.  the known period photos of the place tend to come at intervals of 20⁺ years, so the sequencing of some of the changes the cottage has been through hasn't been completely obvious.  it did, however, seem that the dormers were added around the time the shingles were, probably when the old old upper front window was replaced with the old new one (which has itself just been replaced with the new old one). 

what I haven't known is when the dates of these window changes fall with respect to roof changes.  for a while I have known that there's a tin roof dating back to somewhere after c. 1905 and before, say, the mid 1920s, up there under a couple of layers of asphalt shingles, but I was under the impression that the dormers had postdated it. 

having taken a closer look, I now know: they don't. 
here's the roof of the N side front dormer, with shingle layers pulled back to reveal the material and pattern of underlying tin:

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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dormer roof tin

what a shame it is that the underlying tin has been perforated with so many shingle nail holes.  I'm estimating it at a few gazillion. 

so when the time comes to deal with the cottage roof I hope to able to revert to tin or a suitable substitute.  one other cottage on the Circle has its original tin roof, which I have long admired coveted ...

tin roof - 1 the Circle

... seen in this December 2005 image in which the lightest dusting of snow brings out texture and pattern. 

the trick will be to eke some more time out of the current roof, which has attained if not exceeded its service life, and to still be able to afford the work when the E end subtraction and subsequent rebuilding get done.  I'm figuring that's probably a couple of years out. 

Comments

[collpepper.livejournal.com]

Tin roofs are very appealing on homes, and wear so well.

tin shingles

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Those tin shingles on your roof are still being manufactured - http://www.berridge.com/classvic.htm. We had our house re-shingled with the classic style since our shingles were rusted through. You can order them pre-painted with a 50 year warranty.

re: tin shingles

[15-the-circle.livejournal.com]

thanks, that's a great resource. 

as it happens I had run across them online earlier today and was going to post a note to the community page with a query as to whether anybody had made use of them -- now I know.  but the roof is holding up reasonably well and since there are some, shall we say, issues elsewhere in the cottage it's going to have to keep on holding up for a while longer.