Sagging Shutters and Fixing Leaks

Category: gardens and old home renovation | Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 3:59 pm

As I have gone about addressing the needs at Melrose, my ol' pile in eastern North Carolina's ag-land, uppermost in my mind has been securing the shell of the house so that the rain does not pour in, the wind does not whistle in, and various scofflaws do not come in. In moments of delusion, I actually think I have been successful in this prime goal, but sanity always returns and I am disabused of such stuff-and-nonsense, as my mother used to say. There I am deluding away, having a cup of coffee in the morning, and a call comes from DH, the fellow who does so much of the work at Melrose. He'll call to bring me up to date on whatever project is underway, and all too often his update includes an 'oh, by the way' about another leak that was discovered after a recent rain. Rains in Eastern North Carolina have been scarce, as they have been for the whole state and region. So, without rain, it is easy to become complacent. No rain, no leaks, no worries. Then comes a rain, followed by a call from DH.

To DH's knowledge, all leaks are accounted for and patched. But that is until the next rain. The roof is metal, and how long it has been in place is anyone's guess. I feel certain that it was put on after Sherman came through, but how long after is just conjecture. Speaking of Sherman reminds me of the oft repeated story for why Melrose survived the war of northern aggression. As the story goes, the detachment of Union soldiers who came into the town where Melrose is located might have damaged or destroyed the house but for the fact that the leader of the Union detachment was a Mason, and he learned that the owner of Melrose was a Mason. Rather than burn down a fellow Mason's home, Melrose was allowed to stand. The problem I have with that story is that it is very similar to stories of how homes were saved all over the South.

Anyway, back to roofs. Patching a leaking roof is a time-honored practice, but my thinking increasingly is moving in the direction of "Shouldn't I be thinking about replacing the roof with something that will last at least to the end of my life, and hopefully long beyond that?" I confess that the cost of replacing the whole thing at one time is bound to be too costly, especially with all the other things that need tending at Melrose. So, I am going to investigate replacing the roof in stages. Fortunately, because the house was added onto over the past 200 years, it has different roof surfaces that cover the various additions, resulting in several separate and distinct roof areas. Each could, I suppose, be replaced as time and money allowed. At least I hope so.

Increasingly, I am seeing homes which have metal roofs with a baked-on painted surface and are, I think, far superior to the metal roofs of Sherman's or any other earlier time. I particularly like the fact that you can get the new roofs in different colors. I've been thinking that a nice chartreuse would look good on Melrose, rather than the stogy green it now sports, but I'm concerned the good folks who are my neighbors might tie me to the business end of a cotton combine and proceed with their harvesting should I choose such a color. Still, one is tempted....

Two other issues I am dealing with concern the cost of heating Melrose, and the condition of the shutters that grace every window at the house.

Heating Melrose (and air conditioning in the spring/summer/autumn) is not simply an issue of money. It raises an interesting philosophical question concerning caring for old homes in the years to come when energy costs likely will be even more burdensome. Old homes by their very nature are not energy efficient. The technology available when they were built did not allow for that. Wood and coal were plentiful and global warming was still two hundred years away.

If Melrose were occupied full time, it would cost a king's ransom to heat Melrose to a comfortable temperature in the winter, and the future does not appear to offer any relief. So, what's a poor plantation owner to do? One thing that has occurred to me is to investigate both wind and solar power options as a means of at least softening the impact of heating and air conditioning. My bet is that it is possible to make Melrose energy independent, or darn close to it, but to reach that point will require lots of time and lots of money. The alternatives, though, are dealing with ever higher costs or leaving the house to fend for itself with thermostats set at levels in summer and winter that would make the house unattractive for even periodic visits. I have been upstairs in Melrose in the summer before air conditioning was installed, and I feel quite certain that forcing someone to sleep up there in that heat would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The shutters on Melrose fortunately do not raise issues of human rights. However, they do raise my blood pressure. While I have not counted all of the shutters on the house, I do know that there are 24 just on the front of Melrose. Knowing the total number on the house would require use of a calculator and me taking an extra dose of Paxel. I recently had the bright idea of bringing home a couple of shutters at a time, stripping them, doing whatever repair was called for and then re-hanging them on my next trip to Melrose. At the time, it did seem like a good idea, even if it did require me to live 170 years to get all of the shutters stripped.

Well, I brought home a couple of shutters in seemingly good shape, set up the carpenter's horses and proceeded to strip away. What I discovered is that when you put enough layers of paint on wood over enough years, it no longer matters if the wood beneath rots away. The paint itself maintains the shape of the shutter, giving the appearance that all is well down below where the sun don't shine.

Given that the shutters are likely 100 years old or more, the one I began with wasn't all that bad. Still, the lower left corner joint was rotted so bad that after I had cleared away the rot, virtually nothing was left of that corner. I'm not a carpenter and could not rebuild the damaged area, so I began to think that if all of the shutters presented similar problems, stripping dozens of other shutters would be a fool's errand. I try to avoid fool's errands whenever possible, so I hot footed it down to a builder's supply and learned that a very similar shutter to the ones on the house is available. But the cost per shutter would make you shutter, and I only ordered two, all the better to avoid bankruptcy.

When I shared all this with DH, he was incredulous. Why buy new shutters when he could repair the old ones? Plus, you can't buy shutters that sag. The fact that all of the shutters now on the house sag 20 degrees from square merely adds to their authenticity. As luck would have it, DH is restoring old shutters for another owner of an old-house. Bottom line is that I will have the two new shutters to replace any old shutters that are beyond even DH's mending touch, and we'll try to salvage the rest/ I'll be responsible for stripping the shutters since I find that task to be fulfilling in a mindless sort of way, and DH can work his magic to bring the shutters back from the verge of disintegration.

With all of this focus on the outside of Melrose, you might think that the interior is being neglected. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I will address that soon. I also have an ancient apple tree that I hope to salvage by doing some judicious pruning this winter. You can't get much more scintillating than that.

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Frank wrote on Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:02 pm:

I can't begin to imagine the amount of work that is involved with Melrose. It would be great to be energy independent but yes this would be a lot more work. Could be worth it however.