Thank you all so much!
TrMama – I tarred a roof around that age; our parents must have been kindred spirits (or drank the same spirits…). I’ve looked, online, at some scaffolding and was wondering if it was worth the investment. We have the original wooden ladder that came with the house if I REALLY wanted to go frugal, lol. Time to start lurking CL.
Nawhite – I’m not sure I understand what you mean by taking the panes out. They are six over sixes so it would take forever to remove the individual pieces of glass. If I was to open the window and hang out, the window would be up and I couldn’t get to the upper section. The bottoms are attached with weighted rope I don’t think there is a way to remove them without cutting the ropes which would be a sin, no? Of course I could be totally misunderstanding what you are trying to say!
We have considered a metal roof, the price is pretty close to the shingle; however, the sloped section of the porch roof is rolled copper. My (extremely limited and entirely internet based) knowledge of metallurgy suggests that the material in a metal roof touching the copper could cause one or both surfaces to oxidize/corrode/do bad things. In addition I’m not 100% sold that the two materials would look right together. We are trying to keep the historical elements that we can, it’s not visible from the picture; but, all the valleys are copper and we have the original copper snowbirds/snow-stops that we will have re-attached...can you tell I’ve fallen in love with a house?
Modify – Sort of, they aren’t hinged, more like… clipped and hung. We don’t have the storms (if it ever had storms) and the screens are hit or miss as to if they are still on. We had planned, when we painted, to just take the screens down, get rid of them and, overtime, install triple track storms/screens. The thought was to get some extra efficiency without all the cost of replacement windows. Hmm… if I can paint I house I could measure and install those storms, right?
I do like the idea of letting the paint go on the brick… it’s an “English cottage” after all… some rustic elements would be fine. Plus, WAY cheaper! I might actually be able to afford some window boxes ;)
I had to google chimney cricket and I’m pretty sure we don’t have one... the chimneys both go straight up – our contractor did talk to us about replacing/installing flashing where he felt we were missing some; I believe around the chimney was one of those areas. We do need a few bricks, right at the top, replaced. That is a secondary project as a usable fireplace isn’t on the priority list – it is on the list and was planned to be done at the same time a chimney cap is installed. Have you ever had a squirrel die in your chimney? The smell is awful and it makes the cats crazy.
And remember, it’s not real slate… asbestos “slate” and it’s about at its life expectancy. It was a serious PITA to find anyone that would even touch it, no one would repair it, I found two contractors that were licensed to mitigate and one that would do it on the hush hush… yeah… I think this is something that pays to be above board with. Part of the cost is a $2k asbestos license/permit and the double bagging of the roof that has to happen to get rid of the stuff (and the pallet of tiles we have left from original construction).