Three years ago the insurance company had a mold remediation company come out and clean up our attic (at the same time they did the basement from the burst boiler). Mold remediation, for anyone who doesn't know, inolves painting everything in the attic with a fungicide, then painting over it.
That obviously only slowed things down and we now have mold in the attic once again. Naturally, the insurance company only pays for remediation once, so we are on our own for this one - and it will be much more expensive as we have decided to do it right, not go thru this every couple of years.
We are going to end up taking off the whole roof and replacing it all; the rafters, plywood and roofing. We believe that a lot of the problem is the ice damn buildup we get every winter. We have a non-too-steep roof so the snow doesn't slide off and WS has to shovel it when he can.
To eliminate the shoveling and ice dams we are going to go with a metal roof. We are in the process of getting bids and soon we will be refinancing the house so that we can get the work done. Unfortunately this also means we will have to extend the life of the mortgage; we had only 8 years left to pay and now we are going to be going up to 15 years. The siding is also in bad shape, and if we decide to do both at the same time, we will have to extend to 20 years (the cost of both is about 3/4 of what we originally paid for the house). Howver, both roof and siding should outlive both of us, but it is kind of disheartening to think that we may be paying a mortgage until we are really close to our 70's.
Blecchh!
OMG, Bogie, don't even talk about your and WS's being that close to your 70s! With any luck, you'll be able to pay off early with the huge inheritance from your folks (wink, wink). You're dad will probably be as stubborn as his dad was and insist upon living to be 100, though, so don't hold your breath.
In case you worry - I'm only sorry that Pop did not make it to 100, but only came close. I miss him.
Posted by: Cop Car | June 26, 2010 at 02:16 PM
Yeah, the breath-holding has begun - NOT!
Even if there were a huge inheritance, I figure the government would get it all as they will have made it 100% taxable by then.
Posted by: bogie | June 27, 2010 at 05:04 AM
Ice "damn"?
A play on words, I hope.
Posted by: DCE | June 27, 2010 at 11:55 AM
Ha - I caught one place where I had mispelled "dam" but not the other. Guess I should have called it 'damn ice"!
Posted by: bogie | June 27, 2010 at 01:05 PM