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The roof is the advance guard of the house. It engages the elements
first and provides the most fundamental protection from them. As such
it is always a source of anxiety and concern. If it's old, you wonder
when you'll have to replace it. If it's new, you wonder when you'll
have to repair it.
Every roof needs adequate runoff. You can't just let the water that is
ready to fall off your roof go straight over the sides. First of all,
the random dripping would keep you up and drive you crazy. Then all
the water would end up in your basement, or flooding the area around
your crawl space or foundation. To ensure proper runoff, all roofs
must have gutters that drain the water to leaders.
Check the southern exposure of the roof. This side gets the worst
beating from the sun's rays because of the rising and setting of the
sun in the south. (Well, actually it rises in the east and sets in the
west, but you'd never know it to look at the southern exposure of your
roof.)
Trying to decide which way is south will probably keep you too
preoccupied to ask what the roof is made of and whether or not it
keeps the weather out (should you buy, you'll find out when it rains).
The most common roofing materials are:
Slate: Unbelievably expensive, breaks easily,
requires specially trained, dying breed of craftsfolk to repair or
replace.
Asphalt Shingle: Smells funny when wet, cracks in
cold, retains heat in summer.
Wood: Leaks, smells, rots.
Metal: Bends, rusts, corrodes
If price is no object, you might consider a thatched roof,
certainly the cutest roof of all, especially if you don't mind living
under a fire hazard teeming with mice and spiders. From a distance, a
house with a thatched roof looks like Don King.
This Homebuyers Tip was excerpted from:
The House Trap, by Alfred Gingold, Workman Publishing, 1988.
ISBN#: 0894806157
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