That terrible sinking feeling hit when we got the quote for a new roof. It was twice what we had expected even thinking on the high end. Besides the original 1917 black slate still on large parts of it, one of the big costs is that the aluminum siding on the sides of the dormer comes down and meets the roof on top of several thicknesses of past shingles and slate. When the old shingles get removed all the way down to the wood, there will be a gap between the siding and the lower roof. Also the siding needs to come off for the frost guard to run up the sides of the dormer. Then, they want to put up vinyl siding on the sides of the dormer because it would be next to impossible to reuse the aluminum without denting it or bending it when they take it off. How ugly would that look with new white vinyl siding on the dormer against the old white aluminum siding of the sides of the house. So do we go with a different color to make it look like an accent?

I’ve been researching the cost of replacing the aluminum siding with different materials and how much we’d get for scrapping the aluminum siding (70 cents a pound to 75 cents if you have more than 100 pounds) and came across this article. Now that’s an idea. We drink enough pop that we could probably have enough cans to do the dormer by the end of the summer. A little paint and presto! :-)
Can House