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The Right Roof Replacement for your Mid-Century house

42 min readWhile there is no one perfect answer to the question: what’s the right roof for a mid-century house … there is a right answer for you. Here’s how to find it!

Thinking roof replacement. Your project is probably easier than this Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house!

So it’s time for a roof replacement on your Mid-Century house … OK! What’s the best move. What roofing type is the most authentic? The most long lasting? What color should it be? Do you need to take on sister projects for most efficiency? There usually isn’t just one right answer but let’s talk about your options!

One KEY thing to remember before taking on any new home purchase is that you can’t get unbiased advice from someone who wants to sell you something.

Always check with an independent inspector that your roof NEEDS replacing before you dive in.

And always get advice about the benefits of different roof materials from multiple sources rather than taking a “my product is the best product” message from a single supplier at face value.

Common MCM Roof Replacement options!

Ok to start, here’s the question I get most often:

What is the most authentic option for a mid-century house roof?

If you have a builder grade ranch … or any mid-century home with a 3:12 roof or above … the answer is Asphalt Shingles. That is what most mid-century homes had originally. Let’s get this one out of the way.

But Asphalt Shingles are the obvious choice (that I do NOT love)…

Asphalt Shingles

Lasts: 20-30 years IN THEORY but often replaced in 15. Costs: $

Look … I’m just going to say it. 80 percent of American houses have Asphalt Shingle Roofs. Most mid-slope mid-century had them originally and they are the lowest cost replacement option in nearly every region and for nearly every roof type. They are also the worst.

Even though an Architectural Asphalt shingle (that very name offends me) can theoretically last 30 years, often shingle roofs are replaced in as little as 15.

They are all to easy to scrape off the surface of your house and drop in a dumpsters. Well … not that easy – it’s hard labor to the roofers – but certainly very fast. You can go from old roof to new one in as little as a few days.

And in just that little time, a literal ton of petroleum based waste heads off to your local landfill.

YUCK.

Also they are absorb heat into your house, crack easily due to temperature fluxuations, blow off in storms, get damaged by hail and look … meh.

Why are they so popular, particularly in America? Pushy contractors and fast fashion.

Look, I’m typing this advice from under the asphalt shingle roof of my own mid-century ranch. Do I hate it? YES. Do I plan to replace it right away. Heck, no. That would just be hurrying it off to the landfill. Will I lean hard into any other option when the time does come to repaces it? Absolutely, I will.

Sweet houses like this one deserve better than asphalt shingles!

So … here are a bunch of alternatives!

Cement or Clay Tile

Lasts: 100+ years. Costs: $$ -$$$

This option is always going to be much more common is the West and South West. I wouldn’t recommend it for a midwestern or east coast home.

Mid-Century homes with a Spanish Revival flavor almost need them. And they are a practical, ultra durable, option that checks the fire safety boxes and also do a pretty good job of heat management.

Metal

Lasts: 40-80 years. Costs: $$

Ranging from the extremely cheap and practical corrugated metal – lean into the mid-century minimalism – to the simple standing seam, to the faux shingle effects, there are a lot of metal roof options. I like them all.

Metal roofs allow for good thermal separation between the sun’s heat and your home’s interior temperature. They can be (when properly installed) quiet. They are durable and sturdy. They can last your lifetime. They sleekly shed rain and snow and are good for rain water collection. They are a fire safe option. Essentially … what’s not to love about a metal roof?

If you have a flat or low slope roof

What is a low slope roof? The slope of your roof is measured in Rise:Run. So if you climb up a ladder, hold a level out flat from the surface of your roof and measure the vertical distance at 12 inches along the roof, you can plug that number in to your roof slope.

Most Mid-Century homes have slopes between 3:12 and 4:12 like the one above.

Certain types mid-century vintage cottages (like the early Levittown cottages) have steeper slopes. And the more stylish and dramatic houses often have lower slopes.

Roofs with 2:12 or less are considered low slope.

And then there are “flat” roofs. Note: no roof should ever be truly flat. Then water would never roll off of it. A properly constructed flat roof actually has a slope of 1/4 inch over a 12 distance.

IF your home has a 2:12 slope or less … you’re going to be looking into the specialty options. (But NOTE: you can still go with a metal roof)!

BUR (Built up Roof) or Modified Bitumen

Lasts: 20 years (Modified Bitumen) 20-30 (BUR), Costs: $$-$$$

The Built up roof is “built up” of layers of felt impregnated with asphalt. It is the old school authentic choice for flat roofed homes. And if it seems a little old fashioned … it is.

Still, with proper care and maintenance you can repair (or “heal” the roof by patching it with more asphalt or tar. And you can protect it from damage or UV degradation by keeping it well covered in gravel or aggregate (such a cute look!)

Essentially if you still have a BUR I recommend maintaining it as long as possible. But I’d hesitate to endorse it for a replacement project. Among other things you may struggle to find someone who can do the install or a company that is happy to insure it.

Membrane (EPDM or TPO)

Lasts: 5-30 years (often depending on thickness). Costs: $$$$

Two common types of Membrane roofs are the (light colored) EPDM and the dark rubber (TPO.) Both operate on the same principle: a single sheet membrane is stretched across your roof surface and sealed at the edges. The thicker the layer, the more durable.

This is a system often used for commercial flat roofed buildings so you may have better luck seeking out commercial – rather than residential – installers for quotes if flat roofed homes are not common in your area.

Many people think a black surface looks tidier (as it it doesn’t show dirt) but a light surface will perform better in heat. I encourage you to lean into the future forward light colored roof choice where possible.

Sprayed Poly Foam System

Lasts: 20-50 years. Costs: $$$$

This is a roofing system that is popular among Eichler owners because it can seal and insulate in one step. It’s meant to be low maintenance, energy efficient and attractive. It does depend on the quality of the installation so it is important to go with a trusted expert.

Quick resources for Roof replacements

How to make your Replacement Roof Choice

Ultimately you’re going to have to weigh the durability, the heat management, the sustainability, the style, the safety and the cost against each other and make your own choice. Here’s how I would think about some of these factors:

Durability vs Cost

Whenever you can literally afford it … plan for the longest roof life span available. An asphalt shingle roof might be cheaper … once. But it will be more expensive (thanks, inflation) the next time you need to tackle it. Consider the relative lifespans: it is not 4 times cheaper. Solve the problem once and then sleep easy under your lifetime roof.

As Mid-century home owners, we are in the business of thinking long term. Plan for a roof that can out live you!

Sustainability SEveral ways

Choose a “cool roof.” Lighter colors and certain materials are better at reflecting – not absorbing – light and heat. A cooler roof choice means your attic or house stay cooler which lowers your heating bills. They also mean your neighborhood stays cooler – good for everyone.

Plan for water management. If you want to do rain water collection you’ll want to choose a roof surface you’re happy to water your plants from. Metal, concrete, tile and slate are all better choices than a petroleum based product for this factor

Limit waste. The longer your roof lasts, the longer it stays out of the landfill. But certain roof types like metal, concrete and clay are also easier to repurpose and reuse than asphalt.

Even though Asphalt shingles can THEORETICALLY be recycled into road surfacing materials, the EPA estimates that less than 10% actually are.

Aesthetics and Authenticity

The most period correct choice in this case … may not be the best. Our mid-century homes were likely all built with asphalt shingles or BUR flat surfaces. They ALSO included asbestos insulation and lead paint. We don’t need to keep making those choices. Even if every other house in the area has an asphalt roof … you might lead the way forward with a new style in metal or a more durable shingle style.

Extra questions you’ll NEVER regret asking at the time of a Roof Replacement

Do I need to make any repairs to the roof or attic or house structure?

Do I want to modify the roofline at any time in the future? If you’re planning an addition of any size, a roofed porch or screened area, or a dormer to add light to an attic space … it will never be more efficient than when bundled with roof replacement!

Do I want to add insulation? Especially if you have an exposed roof structure on the inside – those gorgeous elevated ceilings and articulated joists that we all drool over in magazines – you may need to add insulation on the OUTSIDE of the house. Make this happen while replacing the roof and you’ll thank yourself later!

Do I want to add skylights? Cut them in now. Skylights and solar tubes CAN be added to an existing roof but you’ll get the best weather seal and the best insulation results if you pair them with a replacement project.

Listen to the podcast episode Now On 

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Quick design tip for…choosing your siding color(s)

If you’re choosing roofing colors … you might find it helpful to also think about siding colors! This handy guide can help!

Mid Mod House Feature of the Week

Formica

This is an old school mid-century material I have NO desire to phase out. Formica counter tops are durable, cleanable, fun and functional. And they are pretty darn cost effective too!

More Episode Resources 

And you can always…

Read the Full Episode Transcript

Della Hansmann 

So what is the right replacement roof for your mid-century house? What materials? What considerations should you be thinking about if you need to replace your roof, it’s going to come up. And this is actually a question that I’ve gotten twice recently from friends on the internet. It’s a tricky and expensive issue for every homeowner that will come around at you if you stay in your house for long enough.

Della Hansmann 

So as per usual, I’m going to tell you that there is not really one right answer, although I do have one favorite material. More on that in a minute, but there are better and worse options, and there are considerations that you want to keep in mind when you’re making the right choice for your house that include your climate zone, your roof slope and your budget.

Della Hansmann 

Hey there. Welcome back to mid mod remodel. This is the show about updating MCM homes, helping you match a mid-century home to your modern life. I’m your host. Della Hansmann, architect and mid-century ranch enthusiast. You’re listening to Episode 2002.

Della Hansmann 

First, I want to shout out to my two brave question askers on Instagram. Hopefully you will find this episode helpful and reassuring. I used some of your specific questions and situations to think about how to put this together, and also a big thanks to the crew that showed up to this Monday’s ready to remodel Office Hours call after I answered the questions that had come up for my ready to remodel students on the call, we had a really fun brainstorming session about what they had both wondered about and learned from experience in their own past roof replacement projects.

Della Hansmann 

For those of you who don’t know ready to remodel is the program I’ve put together to teach the step by step method I use on behalf of my clients to homeowners who want to plan and lead their own remodels. It includes step by step instructions, guides, workbooks, templates and resources to walk you through the process, and also it includes a monthly architect Office Hours call where students can show up and ask me whatever is on their mind.

Della Hansmann 

Questions like what height to hang pendant lights when your roof slopes up to what kind of things to think about when you’ve hired a kitchen designer to put together a proposal for you, they’re about To give you their results, and you’re wondering what question questions to ask, what things to focus on, how to mentally frame that meeting and get the best results out of it.

Della Hansmann 

I love these office hours calls because they can really be about anything related, related to remodeling, technicalities and feelings, and also because I’ve been running this program for four years now, and it’s something that you get access to over and over again through time.

Della Hansmann 

So people show up most when they’re freshly in the program and they’re hot in the process of planning and remodeling, getting it started, but they also come back again over time as they pick up another small project or they just want to check in. Get motivated, stay enthusiastic.

Della Hansmann 

And on Monday’s call, we actually had a relatively recent student, I think, from last spring’s cohort, someone from the cohort before that, and someone who had actually joined in the original program launch in 2021 so it’s really fun to see the range of people in their various processes of making changes to their home and gaining experience and satisfaction and really Just confidence in the process, and I get to answer their questions, but they also have advice and support. And oh, when I did this part, it felt like this.

Della Hansmann 

I was surprised by this. I was happy about this advice for each other, which I think is so wonderful to have a peer group that’s going through the same process you are, is so reassuring and encouraging, and it just helps make the process of planning a remodel less of a lonely

Della Hansmann 

searching for things in the middle of the night, having a circular debate with your spouse about the same thing that neither of you can sort of get outside of your own perspectives about kind of an experience. So if you’re curious about ready to remodel, it is an open program. You can join it at any time, and you can learn about it by watching a free master class I put together that talks you through the big picture overview of the mid-century Master Plan method. Go find that on my website at mid mod midwest.com/master

Della Hansmann 

class leading into the topic of roof replacements, which do come with an esthetic, a color oriented question, I thought I would choose our bonus remodeling Tip of the Week on your siding color which might feel related. And if you’re doing a roof replacement, you might be doing a siding replacement or a siding recoloring at the same time. Sometimes this happens when a house changes hands and maintenance has been deferred for too long. You’ve got to do a lot of exterior work all at once.

Della Hansmann 

Let’s talk about picking the perfect color for your mid-century house, the color scheme of your home is one of the most effective and quickest ways to put your stamp on the house and start the process of making it your home. So let’s talk about color devoid of some of the things I’ve talked about in previous tips, where, if you’ve got stone, if you’ve got brick, if you have particular is it cream or red brick, maybe your house doesn’t have any accent block or material at all, when all you have is siding, no stone, no brick, no block.

Della Hansmann 

You can choose to embrace simplicity, or you can add in your own accents and details with color or by bringing on a new material. So here’s what you don’t want to do, pick an accent color and use it to outline every window and door with little boxes as if you were no offense, but as if you were a kindergarten or drawing a sort of a concept of a house.

Della Hansmann 

Instead, you want to color block it highlight a whole area of the house, perhaps a place where the house is a little tight higher or the area around a living room window, let that entire space, trim and siding together be one color, and then let the rest of the house blend back into the background or recede a little bit with its more muted color. Resist that temptation to add your trim color by painting your window and door trim, or by painting your shutters a different color.

Della Hansmann 

 You can bring in an accent color at the front door, in lawn furniture, in a bench, in a couple of places around the house without having to do those mid-century traditional, little throwback details. Let’s see a couple more places to add an accent color, your mailbox, house numbers, again, yard furniture. Bring your color pops to a more concentrated area, with little bursts of fireworks here, here and here, a small amount of that color, rather than drawing little lines in it all the way around.

Della Hansmann 

By the way, if your window frames are a contrast in color, that’s fine. They might be vinyl or a prefinished metal that’s hard to change but do keep the actual trim around them matching the siding. A couple of mid-century house color combinations I love are the classic millennial gray always makes people feel like they’ve done an update. Or you can go with something warmer, a little bit more olive, that doesn’t feel as tied to the specific moment.

Della Hansmann 

The default mid-century, 60s cool color was a sort of a Usonian red, a barn red, that has always it’s just been classy from then until now, it’s never the wrong choice for a house, or if you’re looking for a color again, that’s a little more divorced from trends. Navy is a good one to try out. If you want to go more vintage, you always have the option of doing that with a white on white house. This is not your modern farmhouse, White House, black trim, black door, looking sort of haunted, like a skeleton. This is white on white on white, possibly with one area of accent color.

Della Hansmann 

Or if you’re also in the mood for a time capsule, you can play with some of those really sweet colors, like bubblegum pink or sort of an aqua toothpaste color of green. These are not wrong choices if you’re going for that vintage look, remember the right color for your house does have to do with surrounding features, with what your neighbors houses have been, if you have any accent materials, like brick or stone, but it also has to do with what you like and your goal to make the house feel more vintage or more updated.

Della Hansmann 

If you want to stand out or blend in, it’s all very well to hear someone talk about color. But if you’d like to see some color options, I’ve pulled together all of my best mid-century house color advice in a free guide, and you can go grab it and see real world examples and things that might light you up about your house at mid mod, midbus.com/colors,

Della Hansmann 

and as always, you’ll find show notes with links to the references I make throughout this episode, a bunch of handy resources for roof replacements, really, plus an outline, actually, a transcript of the whole conversation on my website at mid mod midwest.com/2002,

Della Hansmann 

So you need to replace your roof right now? Well, let’s start with that. Actually, there’s a question to start with before that, do you actually need to replace your roof right now? Now, if you’ve been dodging leaks and patching holes for a couple of years right now, you’re screaming Della Yes, that is why I asked you about roof replacements from mid-century houses. Absolutely, I need to replace my roof right now.

Della Hansmann 

But I do want to ask the question, Does your roof need replacing? Who has told you your roof needs replacing? Why are you replacing your roof? I’m going to tip my hand here.

Della Hansmann 

The most common question I get about mid-century roofs is, what is the right roof for a mid-century house? What is the authentic mid-century roof type? And it’s a pretty easy answer. It’s an answer I don’t love the most common roofing material used on American homes, I’ve read as much as 80% of American homes, and particularly true of mid-century homes, is asphalt shingles. And while asphalt shingles have some good features, the most notable is affordability and quickness of installation. They’re also very easy to tear off and dispose of, which

Della Hansmann 

is a good thing and a bad thing, because they’re very easy to dispose of, and they’re very easy to just sort of get worried about and tear off and dispose of. So I’m going to begin this whole episode on different roofing materials with a little rant about something that happens all too commonly in neighborhoods with homes predominantly finished in asphalt shingle roofs.

Della Hansmann 

I’ve watched this happen on my own block on a very predictable cycle several times in the less than a decade that I have lived in this house, I live in a neighborhood of modest mid-century ranch houses in the Midwest, nearly all of them have asphalt shingle roofs. Mine does, too. For reference, I don’t love that, but I also don’t want to rush the shingle roof I have into the landfill.

Della Hansmann 

So whenever there has been a notable hailstorm, not every winter, but many winters in the Midwest, there will in the spring be a bunch of roofing companies canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on doors and telling people that their roof has probably been damaged by the recent hailstorm and it needs to be replaced. Now this isn’t necessarily untrue, but it’s also not necessarily necessary.

It triggers a cascade of Re Roofing throughout the neighborhood. Now this works out okay for the homeowners, because often Re Roofing necessitated by hail damage is covered by insurance, and that isn’t I don’t want to make this sound super nefarious, but it isn’t checked that hard if there’s been a hailstorm, if other houses in your neighborhood are needing Roof Replacement because of hail damage.

Della Hansmann 

It is pretty easy to go ahead and get your roof replaced because the asphalt shingles have been damaged by hail or may have been in the end, the homeowner gets a new roof. They sleep peacefully at night. The roofing companies have a field day and work all around for the season, and in the end, we all pay for it because the insurance companies have slightly higher rates, and there goes another ton, literally another ton of waste off to the landfill for each house re roofed. Now that’s a rough calculation of a modest ranch house of about 1000 square feet, bigger and more complicated. Roof lines need more shingles, more weight, more than a literal ton more volume of asphalt shingles going directly to the landfill.

Della Hansmann 

What about recycling, you might ask? Well, in theory, asphalt shingles can be recycled into road material, but according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency, 11 to 13 million tons of asphalt shingles are torn off of roofs in the US every year, and less than 10% of that material is recycled into roads or other paving projects, while the remaining 90% ends up as waste in our local landfills. Not great.

Della Hansmann 

So I want to start here, because roofs are a perfect example of who is telling me this, and why do they want me to believe it. This is not necessarily a malicious cycle. The other thing you need to ask is, who is telling me this, and why do they want or need to believe it? The bottom line is, when you are wondering if your roof needs replacing, get an inspection.

Della Hansmann 

An independent inspector can tell you whether your roof needs replacing, or perhaps whether it just needs some repair, or give you an estimate of when it is likely to need to be replaced an early, conservative date, and perhaps how far you can push it weigh your options before you take advice from a particular supplier of a specific product for anything on your house. This is because roofing companies generally specialize in a specific type of roofing, some roofers will do both asphalt or a different type, or architectural asphalt shingles, or also metal or a couple of other types.

Della Hansmann 

They probably have a preference, and they may actually only have a specialty in one type of roofing. And therefore they’re going to tell you their type of roofing is the best type of roofing for your house. I would love for you to talk to multiple people with multiple options and get as much independent advice as you can before you replace your roof. Again, the cost of an independent inspector coming to your house is always going to be a flat fee.

Della Hansmann 

It’s not rolled into the cost of doing something you would have a roofing company inspect your roof, and they will probably not charge you for it, because if they then sell you a roof after that, it’s absolutely to their advantage, and they have a certain amount of loss invested in we’ll just send out people to inspect enough roofs per week that one of them will turn into a job.

Della Hansmann 

And there we go again. Not nefarious, but it’s in their interest to recommend that you replace your roof, and it’s in your interest to not pay a roof replacement company earlier than you need, and to make the best choice for you and your house.

One more complaint about asphalt shingle roofs, which, again, yes, the most mid-century original material, the most common material, the most affordable material. These are all true things, but I’m not a fan of choosing such a massive, literally massive, part of our house is to be a petroleum based material.

Della Hansmann 

I know we live in a world with a lot of compromises plastics make our daily lives go round, but this is a choice we don’t necessarily have to make. So when someone asks me, What is the authentic mid-century choice for their ranch house roof, the answer probably is asphalt shingles, and in a vintage, cute way, it would probably be like if the house had green siding paint.

Della Hansmann 

The original homeowner would have been thrilled to choose green asphalt shingle roof or a Cherokee or a Usonian red siding with a red roof. This was matching your roof, and your siding color was a was a big trend in certain parts of the mid-century era, and there’s a lot of fun vintage advertising for different colors of roof availability. But

Della Hansmann 

this is a moment where I don’t necessarily want us to be perfectly authentic. I would love to see asphalt shingles go the way of those other we know better now materials, because it was also authentic to use asbestos insulation, lead paint, and we wouldn’t choose.

Those again, for authenticity. Today, I know I’m fighting enough hell a battle on this, and I’m sitting here under the asphalt shingle roof of a mid-century house while I say it out loud. So there you go. But if asphalt shingles are going to be your ultimate choice, there are a couple of practicalities, best practices to lean into. One, don’t layer your asphalt shingles. This is something that used to happen.

Della Hansmann 

You may even have heard of it in a practice, a practical thing to prevent leaks. It might have been something that you did on a house in an earlier era of home maintenance. But it’s actually not better to layer multiple layers of asphalt shingles on the roof. It doesn’t prevent leaks. It hides them, and also, there’s all that weight a ton per layer of shingles at minimum.

Della Hansmann 

I actually heard an amazing horror story from one of the ready to remodel students on the call on Monday about their old house that when they had it re roofed, it had four layers of old tar shingles, and when they were moved, the house literally bounced. It sprung up in height, and the plaster work that they had done on the inside before they replace their roof all cracked again. Yikes. Okay.

Della Hansmann 

What else can you do to make asphalt shingles better? You want to choose the architectural I shudder to say that name, but that’s what they call it. Architectural. Asphalt shingles are better than three tab shingles. They’re predicted to last about 30 years at best use, as opposed to about 20 years on three tab shingles. You’ll want to pay attention to the quality of the installation.

Della Hansmann 

You want a roofing company that’s been around for a while. You want someone with recommendations, with warranties, with guarantees. You want to, as I mentioned, avoid double layering, and if possible, choose one of the lightest available colors, more on roof color later, but particularly with an absorbent, hot material. I mean, just think about it, asphalt. If you stand on asphalt in the sun in the summer,

it’s go soft. It burns your feet. That’s black asphalt on the road. But even in a lighter color, it’s a material that’s going to absorb heat, and its qualities are going to change a little bit as it heats up. So you want the lightest possible color to bounce that heat off. And this might be a deal breaker allowing you to choose or not choose asphalt shingles.

Della Hansmann 

You want to ensure that your roof slope is even appropriate for asphalt shingles. I will talk about roof slope a little more later, but many mid-century houses have a moderate to a low slope roof. Most do. The low slope border is generally considered to be a two inch rise over a 12 inch run. A lot of ranch houses are 312 you can absolutely use asphalt shingles on a 312 or a 412 roof.

Della Hansmann 

But many asphalt roofing shingle companies don’t warranty them for a as low as 212 and even if you can get your roofer to put them on. Well, let’s pause right there on that statement, if you found a roofer who’s happy to install asphalt shingles on your roof that is too slow slope for the warranty, that person, that organization, does not have the longevity of your home in mind right now.

Okay, so I’m talking a lot about asphalt shingles right here at the top of the episode, because I know a lot of people have already gotten quotes or done a little bit of cursory internet research on cost per square foot, and found out how much more it’s going to cost to do other things. So if you’re thinking about asphalt shingles,

this is what I want you to bear in mind. You can actually repair or maintain asphalt shingle roofs as well. Even if you’ve got one small leak, you can think about making a small repair in that area. You can also look into treatments to extend the life of an asphalt roof. I had a leak a while ago. It was super bizarre. It actually did some damage to the ceiling inside my office right now, which is how I noticed that it was even happening.

Della Hansmann 

And I did a personal repair. I went in my attic. I found the spot where there was a little bit of wetness on the inside of the plywood sheathing underneath the roof. I actually, very much the DIY homeowner, climbed on the roof with a hose and ran water down it on a dry day to see where the water was coming in. And I actually found there was a nail sticking up through the shingles of my roof, not a roofing nail. It’s a mystery to this day how it got there, and honestly, I find it kind of creepy.

Della Hansmann 

It’s the backside of the house. Maybe the previous homeowner had done it. It was within the first year of my owning the house, and I just repaired it with blackjack and problem solved. No more leaks, no more damage, no need to replace the whole roof about it. So I absolutely want you to take roof maintenance seriously. Leaks are a serious business, and one of the primary purposes of a roof is to move water off of the surface of your house and out into the landscape beyond rather than letting it come into your house.

Della Hansmann 

Water is one of the most damaging things that can happen inside of your house. However, I always want you to think about what is necessary and have your roof inspected before you go further. Okay, let’s talk about some of your broader options. Let’s think beyond asphalt shingles and some of the considerations that are going to affect your house. One of the first determining factors to know about your house, and this is something you’ll want to know in general for other reasons, is what is your roof slope? Now you.

Don’t need to know this precisely, but you want to have a general sense of do you have

a low slope or a mid-slope house or a flat roof? These are your options for mid-century houses. There is one exception, houses built in the mid-century era, in the early years, in a more cottage style. Think about like the Levittown style of house late 50s or even early 40s. Neighborhoods have a bunch of these mid-century traditional cottages. They tend to have a steeper roof slope, perhaps even

a 612 some of them even have a very steep pitch. And they had attic space, livable attic space inside of them. But your typical mid-century ranch has a 412 a 312 or even a 212 roof. When I say those numbers, I mean the first is the amount that you would hold a ruler, ruler that rises up.

Della Hansmann 

And the second, the 12 is how much of a foot as a foot going over. So if you want to throw a ladder against your roof, hold one ruler out level, or get a level and hold it out from the edge of the roof. Measure 12 inches over, and then how far down you can go from your level to hit the roof. That is your roof slope number. Now this does affect the type of roofing material you can use.

Della Hansmann 

And then, of course, there are the more adventurously, the more dramatically designed houses may have, a lower slope of 212, 112, or even a flat roof. We always use air quotes around the word flat roof, because no roof should ever actually be flat. Remember, the primary purpose of a roof is to encourage water to flow downhill off a roof. So a so called flat roof is usually designed with a quarter inch over a foot slope, very subtle, but enough to encourage the water to go in a direction and leave the roof. Anytime you have a valley or a low spot you can get puddling, which is just water sitting on the roof.

Della Hansmann 

And that’s bad. No roofing material is really designed to be a bathtub. It’s not supposed to hold water on top of the roof. We want our roofs always to be just shedding water in a particular direction. So certain roofing types are better for certain slopes. Specifically, as I’ve mentioned, shingle roofs are not right and usually not warrantee-able roofs with a slope of 212, or less.

Della Hansmann 

And that’s because shingle roofs depend on a certain amount of gravity pressure to keep water flowing downhill down roof. Otherwise it’ll begin to use wicking to sort of wrap around a shingle and go back upwards again, using surface tension that gets water up under the shingles, under the tar layer, and then into the wood of your sheathing, which is absolutely what you do not want to happen.

The lower your roof slope, the more limited your roofing options are going to be. So I’m going to begin with the widest range of options for people with mid slope, mid-century roofs. If you’ve got a regular ranch house, you’ve got a range of roofing material options available for you.

Della Hansmann 

So let’s go through some of their lengths and common qualities. Usually, the most affordable option you’re going to hit is an asphalt shingle roof. Between this there’s some variation. There are what are known as architectural shingles that are a little bit more intensively constructed, a little bit larger, and they are meant to last for about 30 years. Although, as I’ve said before, one of the biggest pro frustrations about asphalt shingle roofs in general is that they get replaced far before they need to, which leads to general waste.

Della Hansmann 

Or the three tab type of shingles are really only meant to last about 20 years. This is going to be by far the most affordable option for you if you’re in a pinch. But if you’re living in the house for longer, you may find yourself having to replace the roofing once, twice or several times during the length of your living in your house. When you’re thinking about these, you’re going to have a couple of color options, ranging from pretty dark, black, gray to quite light, light gray, even a sort of a whitish version and colors the vintage twee style would have been to match the color of your roof to the color of your siding.

Della Hansmann 

And this is a choice you can feel free to make for yourself, although you will perhaps lock yourself in or lock a future owner into a siding choice or range of choices if they want to continue to match or not match the roofing color.

Let’s move on from as well shingle roofs. There’s also cement tile and clay tile roofs. Now, these are more common out west than they are here in the Midwest. They probably don’t respond as well to the freeze thaw cycle here. They can be a very long lasting roof.

Della Hansmann 

A cement Tile Roof is meant to last as many as 50 years, and a clay tile roof is meant to last between 50 and 100 years, although they can be vulnerable to individual cracking in a proper culture of repair and replacement, you’re also meant to be able to go in and replace a few cracked tiles in a roof, rather than having to re-roof the whole thing. So you can kind of do an ongoing maintenance towards the end of its lifespan to extend it.

Della Hansmann 

This is wonderful. And clay and cement are materials that are more able to be harvested back, recycled, reused, broken up, used for new material again. So they’re keeping something out of the waste stream. I definitely think if you have a roof right now, that’s asphalt shingle.

And you want to go for something like cement or clay, you’ll need to also have inspections done to make sure that the structure of your house can support a heavier roof load as well. Tile shingles are heavy cement and clay tile is a heavier roof tile, but this is something that we’re thinking into. And if you have this right now, I think it’s a worthwhile option to maintain.

Della Hansmann 

One of the questions I got from a listener is that they have a cement tile roof, and it’s been coming apart at the seams. I think it might be the original, and it’s really failing right now and feeling very frustrating to them, but I would point out that if it’s replaced now, it’s going to last another 50 plus years, and so it will be very low maintenance for quite a long time, and it’s going to have, compared to other roof types a quite reasonable lifespan.

Della Hansmann 

It’s a good replace and kind option for people who already have that type of roofing. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend shifting to it unless you’re confident that your house can support it, but if what you already have is cement or clay tile, think about sticking with cement or clay tile. It’s going to be a bit of an investment to replace it, but then it’s going to just be really easy peasy for the next foreseeable future of your life.

The next type of roof material I want to talk about is metal. I don’t need to beat around the bush here. This is what I recommend for anyone in the Midwest, and also a good choice for people any part of the country. The simplest version of a metal roof is a standing seam. That’s the kind that sort of has vertical,

little two or three inch high pleats running down it at a perpendicular angle to the way water would flow at the parallel angle to the way water would flow off the roof. There are a number of houses around Madison that have been choosing this, and it’s really fun to watch them go in. They’re an investment. They’re not mid-century original, but they’re sleek and classic. They fit into the dynamic.

Della Hansmann 

There’s a couple of things you need to make sure are done well. You need to think about in the Midwest, will snow slip and slide off of it more effectively than it would off of an asphalt roof with a little bit of a texture to it. You can guard against this by gutter lines or by putting little texture pieces towards the edge to make sure that it’s not going to just slide a line of slow on you as you come out your front door, you’ll want to make sure it’s properly vented for heat, and so that it’s going to basically create a little bit of a raised layer. It’s the protection layer of your house, and then you’ve got insulation happening underneath it.

Della Hansmann 

A subcategory of metal roofs. There are copper roofs. Most metal roofs have an anodized finish that is sort of baked onto them, finished onto them. A copper roof has its original its main metal is exposed to the elements, and they weather over time, turning famously green. I love these for older homes, Victorian homes, more of the cottage era.

Della Hansmann 

When I worked in Chicago, I worked on a lot of houses built in the 20s and 30s, and we loved to recommend copper roof as definitely a high end, definitely an expensive choice, but one that would last 70 plus years, be maintainable and really develop a patina over time to show its time. This is really fun to see it happen, but I don’t know that it’s something that I would choose for a mid-century house.

Della Hansmann 

You could particularly if your house tips towards the organic modern, if it’s a little bit more radian, if it’s a little bit more natural materials only, you could think about investing in a copper roof, or you could simply choose a metal roof with a color that’s neutral and blends into the other materials around your house. Let’s see if we’re getting into the kind of specialty materials, there’s slate. Slate, again,

Della Hansmann 

an appropriate choice for many eras and styles of houses, not specifically something I would choose for a mid-century house, although slate has the potential to be the longest lasting. Slate is a material that can last between 60 and 150 years. So if you want a literal, almost forever choice for your mid-century house, you could go and slate this is going to last longer than your lifespan in the house, and maybe that’s more than you want to care about. It’s also maybe the heaviest of the roof structures, so you’ll absolutely need to check that your house has the ability to carry the weight.

Della Hansmann 

There’s also a trend in sort of fancy solar shingles this I want to be a fan of this. I love solar design. I’m going to talk to you about putting solar panels on your roof at the end of the episode but actually embedding solar into the shingles. There was a time when I thought this was incredibly cool, and now I worry that it’s a little bit of a fad.

Basically, I’m not sure I trust the technology to last, the companies to be able to maintain their own products for long enough that this can really have the lifespan of what we’re looking for in a roof, multiple decades, perhaps a lifetime, a human lifetime. I don’t know that these solar shingles are going to fit that bill, so I would probably not recommend against these if you were completely excited about them, if they were going to make you so happy, if you were willing to take a little bit of a risk, but they’re not what I would advise someone to put their money into, even if they were looking for sustainability oriented choices. Let’s come back. I want to talk just a little bit more about metal roofs. The advice is that they are generally great for temperature.

They’re a good cool roof, because even though metal itself will heat up, it’s going to reflect, rather than absorb, a lot of the heat. And if it’s properly spaced a little bit off the surface of the house itself, it can create a vent line so the heat will build up on the metal itself. The roof finish itself will become hot, but it won’t make the house hot in the same way that an asphalt roof will transfer the heat right into the attic.

And again, they have a slightly shiny surface, so they’re going to reflect, rather than absorb a lot of the heat that is hitting them in hot climates and in hot seasons. Metal roofs have a great durability advantage. They can be dented. They’re not entirely leak proof, but they are sturdy. They’re going to with withstand a lot of the sort of major wear and tear. They’re also excellent for fire safety.

In this week, January 2025 we need to talk about making fire safe choices for roofs. And a metal is generally going to be recommended to be one of the most fire resistant options. You can choose.

The main disadvantage of a metal roof is cost. Most Metal Roofing Companies push their product with this argument, they’ll say, choose a metal roof if you’re planning on staying your home for a long period of time, save yourself the money of multiple, maybe even more than twice, replacement on your roof. Now that’s great. That’s a nice way to look at it your personal pocketbook.

But I would also say it’s worth it either way. As mid-century homeowners, we are invested in the history and the future of our homes, we want to think about how they’re going to last, how they’re going to be permanent fixtures in the neighborhood, how the next person is going to value and live in them, how we can pass them on generationally. And so it thinks, to me, it’s worth it to make a choice of a metal roof, even if you weren’t planning in to stay in the house for a long time.

Why do we want to maintain choices that are about sort of, get in, get out, get on with your life. About a mid-century house. And to that end, it’s also something that if you are knowing that you need to sell the house having a recently replaced roof with a long lifespan can be an incentive for a buyer to pay a little bit more. It can be something that allows you to sell the house more quickly and perhaps at a better price. So,

oh, by the way, a standing seam metal roof can also be a really effective choice for a low slope, but probably not a completely flat roof as well. Speaking of which, let’s get into those specialty roof slopes. This is where, before I put this episode together, I looked for a little bit of help from restoration experts.

I went to the Frank Lloyd Wright building conservancy website and checked out their advice for flat and low slope roofing materials on right era, and I think by extension, early, mid-century homes. So they talk about a couple of options you’ve got if you’ve got a flat roof, as we discussed, not really flat hopefully, but a flat ish roof.

The original, the vintage option, is to go old school with what’s called built up roofing, often called b, u, r, this can have about a 30 year life span. And the concept is simple. It’s multiple layers of asphalt impregnated felt so a fibrous material and a petroleum material. The petroleum is your water repellency, and the fibrous material gives a little give. Can take an impact.

This kind of roof can be, quote, self-healed, not actually by itself, but you can fix it with coal tar pitch. If that all sounds the very opposite of modern that’s because it is. You then cover the whole thing with a stone aggregate or gravel, which makes it both look more attractive than a bunch of tar on your roof, and it serves a practical purpose. It protects that surface both from minor impact damage and from UV breakdowns.

If this is already your roofing material, I would say you should carry on maintaining it and repairing it as long as you successfully can and as long as your home insurance allows. There’s also a slightly more modern version of this, the modified bitumen roof, which was developed in the 1960s and it’s just a variation where you basically create chunks of this material and put them into a pattern, you lay them out in a grid, and then you seam between them, but it’s again, asphalt emulsified base coast, a polyester or fiber class, squishy layer, and then a top coat of sort of petroleum product over the top of it, this can have good leak resistance and be heat reflective.

It’s easily patched, but it has a relatively short lifespan compared to other roofing materials. And again, we’re in the petroleum world. Basically seal your house with coats of tar. I just, I don’t love it. Okay, so beyond that, there’s a couple more modern materials, a lot of single ply membrane options. You can choose between EPDM, that’s ethylene propylene, diene monomer, single ply membrane, which is often a light colored and TPO, which is a dark colored rubber roofing membrane. So.

Yeah, these are going to be basically a thin, laid solid, wide surface with seams in a couple of places seal that you’re basically just wrapping the top of your house in a balloon layer. These can also be protected with that kind of gravel or aggregate on the roof. And I think choosing between these is going to become down to a couple of considerations. Color. I again recommend light if you can, and what is going to feel the most cost effective and most appropriate in your area. It may also come down to choosing between materials.

To choose if one roofer is providing one and another roofer is providing the other, I would choose the roofer with the best recommendations and the best long term record of service. Finally, there’s a thing in California that’s going on where people are using sprayed polyurethane foam, which is newly popular for flat and low slope roofs. This combines insulation and a light colored, relatively durable roof system can be effective, but as its newer, I always I don’t want us to turn away from the new but I like a long record of lifespan to show how the material guarantees and so I want you to just hold that in your head as people are trying it. It might be worth an experiment, but it doesn’t have the record that other roofing systems have.

So let’s wrap up by doing a roundup of some of the considerations you want to hold in your head while you’re thinking about roofing. Probably the biggest consideration is weighing everything, durability, longevity, etc., against cost. But the dollar value of a roof replacement isn’t quite the cost of the lifetime of managing your house. You want to think about light and heat management is your roof heating up your home or your whole neighborhood.

Dark roofs can contribute to the heat island effect, which is that urban areas are often as much as five degrees warmer than the spaces around them. This can mean less snow cover in places like Madison and Chicago, and it can mean distinctly dangerous heat levels in hot climates. So in both cases, we want to keep the urban heat island effect down and keep the heat down in your house by having a light colored and reflective roof material. Also file under sustainability.

Let’s think about the waste, destination and lifestyle cycle of your roof. This goes into the long term cost, by the way, the long term cost to you and the long term cost of the planet a longer duration of roof is going to be less cost to you in the long term, and less cost of the planet is a roofing material that has the ability to be repurposed or recycled at the end of its lifespan, rather than being another ton of landfill in your local waste cycle.

We also want to think about water management. If you’re interested in rainwater collection, or even just in what kind of water is rolling off the roof of your house into the soil around your house, where you might plant things like garden vegetables, you want to think about what the water running down your roof is going past as it traces it.

So this is another argument in favor of metal roofs and against asphalt roofs, while you certainly can do rain barrel water collection off an asphalt roof, you’re highly recommended not to use that water for any food plants, any vegetables that you might be consuming yourself. If rainwater collection is an important issue for you, the material you put on your roof is going to contribute to that.

Then there’s aesthetics. What are you willing or actually excited to look at as you drive up to your house. It might be hard to buck a neighborhood trend, whether your house is sits in a neighborhood of asphalt shingle roofs or every neighborhood, every house in the neighborhood has clay tile or concrete tile. You might not want to do something that’s different from everyone else, but you could also end up being a trend leader in your neighborhood. So think about starting a process, being an example for someone else who’s been on the fence about something has been wanting to make that change and will be inspired by yours.

Della Hansmann 

Lastly, I want to talk about safety right now, as we’re hearing all of this news about the fires in LA thinking about building fire and weather safe elements into your home may have greater weight than it does at other times. This is something that should be important all the time but is particularly easy to focus on when we are surrounded by bad news or perhaps very, very close to it.

Della Hansmann 

For a Class A fire resistant roof, you’re looking at concrete or clay tile, certain types of asphalt fiberglass shingles are marketed as Class A fire resistant and metal roofs. So I think it’s just one more thing to think about, your peace of mind, your sleep at night, your confidence that you’re not going to have your house at risk, to think about a long term, durable choice for your house.

Then finally, there is period correctness. Perfect accuracy here, for me, is less important than I think it is in other parts of mid-century remodels, I would rather have you think about what the mid-century moderns would choose today if they had access to it, if it was easily affordable and available to them, rather than the choice they would have made at the time, just as I would advise you not to be period authentic in maintaining asbestos or lead in your house.

All right, quick roundup of added questions. I know this feels like I’m piling on, but when you are thinking about replacing a roof on a mid-century house for a roof replacement project, if you don’t at least consider these questions now, when you’re at the point of a roof replacement, you will regret it later, after the roof is on and you have to think about getting it back off again to do other things, or unbundling different tasks.

So questions to bundle with a replace roof project are, is it time to reinforce the structure, or perhaps even just sheathing? Do you need to do any repair work to what’s happening underneath the roof, particularly if you have delayed or deferred maintenance or roof replacement projects for a long time, or if you’ve bought a house where the previous owner has not taken on roof replacementquestions when they needed to, you’re going to want to think about, is there water damage to your roof sheathing?

Is everything going on in the attic the way you’d like it to be? This is the right time to make that change. This is also absolutely the right time to add insulation, particularly for people with very low slope roofs who have exposed internal structure. If you have beautiful, exposed joists or beams inside the surface of your house, you’re going to have a harder time adding insulation from the inside of your house.

Your best way to add the insulation is going to be at the time of a Re-Roofing. When you replace your roof, you’ll be able to add layers of rigid insulation or blown insulation, and thicken the roof from the outside, then put a new surface on top of all of it. This is going to improve your life, your quality, perhaps your insurability, your ease of sale, and it’s just the right thing to do at the right time.

Similarly, there will be no easier time to cut in skylights and make sure that they are very, very properly, water sealed and insulated than at the time of a roof surface replacement or to make a change to your roofline if you’re going to put on an addition which is going to change the roofline if you want to. I actually have a client right now who’s tearing off a bad, I think, late 90s addition and making the roof line of their house slightly smaller.

This is the right time to re-roof everything a roof replacement over the whole house is going to tie in and blend the work that you’re doing at this time. So anytime you’re doing an addition, it’s a good time to bundle with roof replacement if that’s necessary. But even if you’re not making any changes to the shape of your house, I would encourage you to think about adding skylights or possibly light tubes at the time of roof replacement, because you are absolutely going to value getting more daylight into your house.

And again, these are things that can be done as interventions without having to get into the whole process of your entire roofing, but they’re more sufficiently done together. What else you may or may not need to replace gutters at the same time as you replace your roof, depending on how intensive that process is, if you’re changing roof lines and structure, you are probably going to lose the gutters. If you’re just having one asphalt shingle roof replaced with another, gutters are probably not going to come into it.

But you can think about this at the time make sure your gutters are performing well if they’re doing everything you want them to do esthetically for the house. And oh, of course, this is a good time to think about pairing a solar thermal or a solar PV roof panel installation.

This is, I hate to say that sometimes it can cause wasteful roof replacements. It does. It’s a problem to de mount roof solar panels in order to replace a roof. It’s trouble. It’s expense. So often when you think about adding solar panels to your house, you’re going to be advised to go and knock off a roof replacement at the same time.

And I think that you want to weigh the pros and cons of that. If you’re still 10 years out from needing a roof replacement, I would prepare to go ahead and put the panels on now and think about having them de mounted and remounted at the time of replacement, rather than throwing a new or a functional roof away 10 years early.

If you’re less than five years away from probably needing roof replacement, it might make sense to go ahead and do that, or to hold off another year or two balancing the energy value of PV panels and the waste cost of just throwing more things into the Lanza village waste stream, as with everything else roof related, there are pros and cons and things you need to weigh. So it’s just a question that I’d love for you to ask yourself, rather than take it as red.

This has probably been a long episode on why. I recommend you choose a metal brew for your house. It’s not the only right answer. There are many other pros and cons to other materials, but I want you to think about choosing the longest term, most environmentally sound, most esthetically pleasing, most effective solution, even if it requires holding out a little longer, investing a little more heavily, this is going to be something that’s going to help your house last longer, and a good roof, a good solid hat on your house is going to help everything else stay strong and last longer within the house.

So, um, hopefully I’ve answered all of the questions that could possibly have come up, and if I have not, I would love for you to hit me with other follow up questions on Instagram. You can always find me at mid mod Midwest.

Now let’s roll right into our mid-century house feature of the week, and I wanted to pick a material that I don’t need to beat up on. This is a mid-century material that doesn’t need replacing, that doesn’t need a whole new reconception. It’s not asbestos. It’s not as best asphalt shingles. I want to talk about Formica, specifically Formica with gold flex in it. This was one of my favorite runners in the mid mod madness we ran last March.

Now it’s often called sparkle lamb, but this kind of gold fleck Formica is amazing. Let’s talk about why it’s great. It is really inexpensive; it is long lasting. It is impact and scratch resistant. It is flexible, and because it’s so vintage, it’s kind of dateless, it’s certainly not on trend right now.

So choosing it for your house right now is not going to look 2025, to someone 5 10, 15 years from now, mid-century Formica always makes me smile. One note, if you are not with me on this one, hey, that’s fine, but I’m not talking about Formica that looks like another fake material. I am not talking about if you were thinking about a marble countertop, by the way, marble countertops are never going to be the right choice for a mid-century house, but then you wanted to go with a more budget option, so you chose Formica that looks like marble. No, nope.

I think, okay, let’s talk about Formica as a laminate product we have in our generation come to associate multiple kinds of laminate products as fakery, and therefore to be despised. But there’s a time and a place for each of these. In the mid-century era, a lot of good quality home furnishing was made with thin ply laminate of real wood arranged on all their edge surfaces neatly. They have lasted for decades, and they’re beautifully constructed. They’re not less quality than solid wood furniture. In some ways, they represent more craftsmanship. And Formica is a laminate product that is best when it doesn’t pretend to be anything.

It’s not so the fake marble, the fake wood, the fake tile. No, none of these are what I’m recommending to here. By the way, fake wood laminate is a memory from my millennial childhood. It’s one of my least favorite things. It ends up just being a photograph of a piece of wood printed out on plastic or paper and then laminated to a surface. It never looks real, and it drives me nuts. To me, it looks like an elementary school classroom circa 1989.

But putting a sturdy and attractive outer layer onto a structurally stable but environmentally inexpensive material is a great idea for a finished surface and laminate counters when they haven’t had terrible accidents like cigarettes put out them all over the house. Oh yeah, this happened in a mid-century master plan project I did early in my career, a gorgeous gold like laminate that I would have loved to have the homeowners preserve was absolutely ruined with cigarette burns all over the kitchen counter, all over the front hall counter and in both bathrooms. Who smokes in a bathroom anyway without cigarette burns?

Formica countertops can last for years. I think one reason we might not love mid-century laminate and Formica surfaces as much as we do other mid-century materials is because this particular product has a resurgence in popularity in the childhood of the millennial generation. So if you’re in my age generation, our parents, if you’re a little older, perhaps you yourself in the late 80s, early 90s, you might have chosen Formica for countertops, for bathroom surfaces, for kitchens, for built ins, and those would generally have been solid colors, often magenta, maroon or teal.

Della Hansmann 

My parents, for example, had a system set of custom end tables and a triangular shaped piece to go behind a curving corner sofa back manufactured around the time of my sister’s birth in 1988 they still have them, and they look just as good today as the day they were manufactured. They’re indestructible.

I walked through a mid-century Master Plan house I was measuring on Monday that is due for a return to its mid-century style, because it was very thoroughly remodeled in what I would guess was somewhere between 1988 and 1993 with oak cabinets, needlessly ornate trim, dark stains on all the rest of the woodwork and teal laminate countertops throughout the house.

It almost works, but in the end, it’s not quite right, and we’re going to be making some changes to take this sort of faux Victorian kitchen of ornate oak counters and of cabinets in the kitchen and basically the whole house and bringing it back to its mid-century chalet style ranch origins.

Anyway, your mileage may vary on whether you like Formica, but if you’re looking for Formica today, I want to point you towards a couple of options.

Della Hansmann 

There are still modern companies producing Formica with little boomerang patterns on it with fun little starbursts, or a pattern called kinetic that looks like kind of a mid-mod version of alternating paint swipes. But my favorite option is sparkle lamb produced by make it mid-century. I will link to this in the show notes. This is what I would choose for any replacement for Micah around my house, but I will also say again, your mileage may vary, but for me, my original 1952 Formica countertop in my kitchen is not going anywhere. I will go to any lengths to reconceive the layout of this kitchen around that existing feature, because I still have it and I never want to lose it.

This has been quite a lengthy episode, but there’s a lot to say about roof replacements for mid-century homes and how to make the right choices for them. I hope you’ve gotten your questions answered here or at least gotten more of a framework for how to think about making right choices for your mid-century home.

As always, the options are many, and what’s best for your house depends on your budget, your location, your style of house, its maintenance cycle, your region, and more. But I know that you’re asking the right questions because you listened to this episode, and if you’ve got more questions for me about your mid-century house, I’d be delighted to talk it through with you. You might want to sign up for a consultation call, which you can easily do on my website.

I’ll put a link to that in the show notes, along with everything else I’ve mentioned, the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy, the Eichler network references on mid-century home roof types and a couple of other handy things you might consider. Find all of that at the show notes page, mid mod, dash, midwest.com/ 2002 and next time, I’ll be digging back into more of the philosophy of feeling great and confident and going easy on yourself as you plan a mid-century home remodel project.

Yeah, I think we’re gonna go back and forth this whole season through more philosophical and more practical questions. So two weeks from now, tune in for something on perhaps lighting in mid-century homes if you’ve got questions on lighting. Ask me about them now, but next week, we’ll have something more on how to feel great about your house and your process and continue to live your life well while you plan a remodel for your mid-century home,

Even if it involves more expensive than you would like Roof Replacement Project. See you then you.

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