Sorry Mother Earth....

OK, I am going to confess that I feel very badly about the choice of roofing materials we are making for the house.  I don't know why it's bothering me, but it is- maybe if I unburden this guilt I will feel better.  In a perfect world it would have been different and we could have satisfied a number of different people and causes.  But with money growing tight we had to make some very difficult decisions for the good of the little William Tripp house.  We started out with the idealistic wish list, we are going to get "x".  It's important and we are not going to change our minds.  We "must do" this or that so that we minimize our carbon footprint.  Now we are to the point of "would have been nice if we could have done..."

There is a lot more to your roofing choice than you would think.  We take the roof for granted until it starts to leak and you have to replace it.  This winter, more than ever, people have been thinking of their roofs.  There are a lot of roofing options too.  In the order of affordability the asphalt roof is the most common and least expensive, cedar shakes offer a historic/rustic look, metal roofs are seen a lot in snowy areas, and synthetic engineered roofs like the Enviroshakes are not very common but a very exciting new technology.  But with anything new, they are often prohibitive in terms of cost to the common home owner.

So, what's the big deal about roofs you are thinking- just get what you can afford and be done with it.  Well, asphalt roofs are the least environmentally friendly choice for a few reasons.  The biggest of course is that they are made from petroleum.  This manufacturing process has a negative environmental impact to recover and process the stuff.  There is also no good means to get rid of asphalt shingles.  They are not ready recycled and end up in landfills were they are slow to decay.  Their longevity is also questionable.

The dreaded shingles

Cedar roofs look great and are a natural product.  I love the look of a cedar roof and the way it weathers over time.  Often cedar shakes come from a renewable source from companies practicing sustainable forestry.  The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult to get good shakes anymore.  They have become thinner over the years and many of the reviews I read claim that the lifespan is only about 15 years.  So, that's not that good!

The synthetic shakes option is clearly the most expensive option- about the cost of 2 Prius cars!  They are made by Enviroshake http://www.enviroshake.com/ and are an environmentally friendly composite cedar-like shake roof made from 95% recycled materials derived from post-industrial plastics, i.e., recycled tire derived rubber. These shakes were used on both the Field House and Shelly House and are beautiful.  The product is green certified which is of course "a good thing" and gives the purchaser that warm and fuzzy feeling of saving the Earth.  But beyond this, the product has a 50 year warranty. 


Enviroshakes up close



Enviroshakes on Shelly house

Shelly House

All this goodness aside, we just can't afford to do the roof and finish the house.  Do you get the roof but not do the downstairs bathroom, guest room and laundry room?  That was pretty much the choice.  So- when the chips were down we crumbled and we're getting asphalt.  It's the same that we put on the barn.  Actually it doesn't look bad on the barn and the verdict is still out on the house. What I could see this morning in the rain- it's OK.  Will I get over the guilt?  Don't know but I think that I will have to- since its in progress.  We've done many other seemingly green things already.  The wood is from New England and not shipped across the country on trucks.  The windows were made in Vermont.  This week they are installing a new propane state of the art European heating/ cooling system.  There is insulation going into the house where there once was none.  All in all I think that mother nature will be proud.  Maybe in a few years when we have recovered a bit from the cost of the project we will look into a few solar panels to help with electric costs.

Starting to shingle roof- looks OK huh?

When they were stripping off the old roof- sigh- good bye cedar.....  they found layers of old newspapers from the around 1824.  On the back side was some really ugly wall paper.  Kind of a cool find, huh?  Now what do we do with these sheets of old paper? 

Old newspapers found under old roof

Paper from 1823

The Columbian

Wallpaper found attached to newspapers

By not getting the fancy roof, I have not given up on trying to save the earth.  We have donated our old vinyl windows to Habitat for Humanities Re-Store program.  This saves them from the land fill and gives someone the opportunity to buy a not so bad window for their own project.  We also have plans for a large 18th century style kitchen garden to provide our organic veggies (now that we have some more light).  Dave is going to finally make that big compost bin that we have been talking about for years- designed like the one at his aunt's farm in ME.  There are more earth friendly ideas coming along in terms of reclaimed wood floors for part of the house and maybe some terra cotta tiles.