By building type
Most church buildings are three roofs of different ages on one structure
A church roof is usually several roofs: a steep historic main roof, a flat roof over an addition built in the 1960s, a steeple or tower, and a connector between them that leaks. They have different service lives and different trades, and the useful first step is to separate them.
What is specific about these buildings
- Steep, tall and complicated. Access, staging and safety are a significant part of the work, and any quote that ignores them has ignored the expensive part.
- Slate and tile are a separate trade from asphalt roofing. A slate roof with individual broken slates is frequently repairable long after somebody has recommended replacing it.
- Built-in gutters and masonry parapets are common, and they are where the water usually gets in.
- What is underneath is irreplaceable. Plaster, stained glass, organ, woodwork. Interior protection is not a formality.
- Steeples and towers carry their own flashing, louver and masonry issues, and they are often the source of a leak that appears far away inside.
How to approach it when the budget is a campaign
Survey the whole building and separate it into areas
Main roof, additions, tower, gutters. Each with its own condition, remaining service life and urgency.
Identify what is actively causing damage
A leak wetting plaster or reaching an organ chamber is a different priority from a roof with five years left, and it should be funded differently.
Write it so a committee can read it
Photographs, plain language, and a clear separation between what must happen this year and what can be planned. This is what a board needs in order to say yes.
Phase the work honestly
Phasing is normal and sensible on these buildings. It needs the transitions between phases detailed so a half-finished roof is still a watertight roof.
The most common expensive mistake on a historic church is replacing a repairable slate roof with asphalt because a contractor who only installs asphalt was asked for an opinion.
The flat addition
Almost every one of these buildings has a mid-century flat-roofed addition — a fellowship hall, classrooms, an office wing — and it is usually the part that leaks. It is a straightforward commercial low-slope project, and the interesting detail is the junction where it meets the historic building, which is where the two get built as one roof by people who think of them as two.
Have a survey to prepare for a board or a campaign?
Talk to us about the buildingCan a slate roof be repaired rather than replaced?
Very often. Slate itself can outlast the fasteners and the flashings that hold it, so a roof losing slates may need the flashings rebuilt and the slipped slates re-hung rather than a new roof. Assessment by someone who works on slate is the difference.
Our historic building is in a district. Does that restrict the work?
It can, particularly on visible elevations and for materials. Establishing what the local review body requires before specifying anything avoids a stop halfway through a project.
How do we prioritize with limited funds?
By what is doing damage now. Active water into plaster, historic finishes or an organ outranks almost anything else, and a survey that separates the building into areas makes that argument for you.
Do you work with volunteer labor on parts of the job?
Anything at height on a steep or tall building is not volunteer work, and that is a safety position rather than a commercial one. There is often useful ground-level work volunteers can do around a project.
All work is performed by licensed and insured local roofing professionals.