Summer exterior home projects: Tree trimming, roof replacement and new solar skylights.
The crowd reaction when Ralf and I tell people that we’ve had our trees trimmed and our roof and skylights replaced, has generally been along the lines of “Wow, sounds like you guys did a lot!”.
And I’d always think, “Eh, no?”. 🤔
For real, no.
It may sound like a lot, but the truth is, anything outside of the confines of our house was no work for us at all. On a scale of 1-10 for personal involvement, these were a 1 ☝️.
There was no need to move personal items to prep the space, barely any need to give instructions, and to be honest, we weren’t really home for the projects- no one needed us!
If you’re a potential homebuyer or homeowner reading this, know that a roof replacement is just about the easiest home improvement project that exists. I get that the idea of it is daunting, but speaking from personal experience, it’s way easier to work with a roof replacement project than an interior paint project.
Step 1: Trim trees prior to roof replacement
Trimming/limbing/clearing trees is an optional step prior to roof replacement, but it certainly is a sensible one.
Gotta make sure that old and dead trees don’t destroy the new roof, right?
We had about 8 dead trees on our lot; one of which was precariously leaning towards the house. It was deader than dead, I mean just look at it:
We also had our guys address the dead limbs of our giant pine tree.
I was very amused to see that the small ones just needed to be slapped off 😂! The larger ones had to be sawed and lowered down by a rope pulley system.
Clean up was done in no time. Our guy, Bruno Correa from B&C Hardscape & Landscape swept our stairs and all.
It’s practically 5 minutes to saw a tree. 2 hours to trim our giant pine tree and clean up the area.
Step 2: Look for quotes for roof replacement
If you’d been following my blog posts, you’d have read that my husband and I have a goal of achieving a net-zero home.
We removed our oil tank in May 2022 and replaced our heat source with an electric heat pump in September 2022. The final task was to install solar panels. Preferably integrated solar roof shingles as we wanted a seamless look; specifically Tesla roof shingles because the marketing got us good.
We ordered twice with Tesla, and twice got cancelled on. Tesla was not happening - the company pulled back on their solar installations. We couldn’t find any other company in MA that did the same, and so for a while gave up hope… until GASP!
(I’m going to digress on a little side story here. Feel free to skip to the part about finding a roofing company, or read on if you’re into solar panels or simply a fan of my writing.)
I SAW THIS HOUSE WHILE OUT SHOWING HOMES IN CAMBRIDGE!
Integrated solar roof shingles are just about as sexy as solar panels can get!
I took a photo and texted it to Ralf; said something along the lines of “I swear I’m going to find out which company did this roof!!!!”
How, you ask?
Well, all roof installations (should) have a roofing permit. It’s a matter of looking up the city’s records. Piece of cake!
But here’s something made even better - as I was looking up the address of the property on Google Maps, I found a SOLAR company registered to it! Came with a phone number, website and all!
I think I sat in front of my computer for a good 10 minutes deliberating if I should call up that number. Isn’t the point of registering one’s company on Google Maps an invitation to reach out? But then again, was I being super creepy?
I went for broke.
Yeah I said a little prayer and made that call. Henry answered, and Henry was super nice and helpful!! 🙌
Henry said that the panels on his roof were by a company called Sunslate - unfortunately no longer in business. He confirmed that Tesla was no longer doing new installations in our (MA) area and unfortunately did not know of any other companies that did integrated panels. He left me with a couple of tips:
Get a solar quote from EnergySage.
It’s a site where you’d be able to insert your address and have the system pull up a satellite image of your roof, followed by multiple quotes from vetted solar providers.
Mount panels on standing seam.
Henry said that if panels are mounted directly on asphalt shingles, the asphalt beneath the roof would be most protected, but the border around it would degrade quickly. Metal roofs, for example, would have a standing seam.
Henry’s kindness made my day. ☺️
Of course, I got on EnergySage’s website immediately after the call, keyed in my address and submitted for quotes for a roof and solar panels.
My Experience working with Golden Group Roofing
I remember receiving a couple of quotes within the next few days, but how we ultimately decided on the company to work with was, you could say, anti-climatic.
Ralf looked up good ol' Google for solar companies near us, picked one for its excellent reviews and invited them over to our house. 😅
We met Xavier Carmona from Golden Group Roofing who responded in no time and arranged for an initial discovery call with us. That entailed an in-person visit to take a look at the roof/surroundings and a talk about our needs.
We told Xavier that we were looking to replace our roof shingles, replace the couple of old skylights that we had and install solar panels. We were tasked to provide utility bills as a follow up so that he could run numbers on the cost efficiency of solar installation.
The next time he came back to our house, he wowed us with a concise presentation and a simple slide that summed up his recommendation:
At a $116 average monthly electric bill and tree cover that would decrease the efficiency of panels to 34%, there’s basically zero cost savings in a typical 25-year lifespan of solar panels.
He told us point blank that it didn’t make sense to purchase solar panels.
No hard-selling, no pushiness.
And for this refreshing sales approach, we put down a deposit immediately.
Step 3: Have roofing company Apply for a permit and install new roof
There’s honestly nothing much for homeowners to do here. Just know that roof replacements need to be permitted, so your roofing contractor should initiate applying for a roofing permit and starting the job only after the permit has been issued.
Meanwhile, if your roofing contractor has their act together like ours did, roofing materials would have been ordered and delivered beforehand.
Bundle of skylights, asphalt shingles, roofing nails and all, just patiently sitting and awaiting installation.
And then, it took a day.
Removing old shingles…
Scrapping it down to the decking… (thank goodness there weren’t any wood rot so we could proceed as planned)
Ignore the blue tarp; that was a necessary cover up of the skylight that looks into the bathroom.
I left in the middle of the day to go about my real estate appointments.
No need for supervision; they’ve got an assigned project manager, Luiggi, who stuck around the whole day and moved things along.
Luiggi even texted the above photo to Xavier who then kindly forwarded it to me for this blog piece. Here’s showing that the new skylight had been dropped in place of the old one.
New shingles, new gutters (gutter guards were later installed too) and they even took care of the flashing replacement around the chimney.
They were done around 6pm that evening, and I got home to a couple of folks doing a magnetic sweep around the perimeter of our property to pick up loose nails and debris. On this note, they actually returned THREE more times after- each time as soon as Ralf and I found more nails, we’d text Xavier and he would jump on sending a guy over either the same, or next day. No complaints.
Here’s Xavier and I! This photo was taken after he’d sent another representative to see if there were any imperfections to be addressed and to show us how the remote for the solar skylights worked. Xavier simply came to shake hands and confirm that everything was done to satisfaction. 👌
FIVE STARS SERVICE!
And then there’s this weather incident that happened recently, 3 months after the job was completed:
FIVE SIX STARS SERVICE! 🙌