Putting a New Roof on an Old Adobe House
Pauline Kenny, March 13, 2006
We live in the historic district in Santa Fe in an old adobe house. The outer walls are nearly two feet thick. One of the interior walls is too, because originally this was a very small house and the outer wall became an inner wall at some point. The house is still small (1400 square feet, but under 1200 if you don't include the walls) and is typical Santa Fe Pueblo Adobe with small windows, low ceiling, kiva fireplace, and vigas (logs) to make the ceiling.
The ceiling and the roof are our concern now. The ceiling from inside is logs across the whole room (in every room of the house), spaced about a foot apart with wood boards above running perpendicular to the vigas. Above that - 6 inches of dirt. On top of that - a tar and gravel roof.
Ceiling - vigas with boards above
Tomorrow the tar and gravel roof comes off, the dirt remains, solid insulation is put down and a new BRAI roof on top of that.
I have heard many horror stories of roofing these old adobe houses; they range from your house fills with dust to your house will be filled with dirt. Everyone expects the dirt to rain down from the ceiling (through the cracks in the boards above the vigas). I don't thinks so, but better safe than sorry, so we spent two days moving stuff out of the house; rolling up the carpets, removing whatever we could (it all went out to the garage).
It has not snowed in Santa Fe since early December, but the weekend before the reroofing we got about five inches of snow. Today is Monday and there is still snow on the ground, but it is getting warmer and no more snow is predicted for this week.
I am always nervous when they open up these adobe walls because I keep thinking "my house is made of dirt - how is that possible?" The house is built from adobe - dirt mixed with straw and water, formed into a block, left to dry in the sun. Our house was probably made from the dirt in our yard. In modern times there is a factory in Espanola that makes the adobe blocks and they are stabalized (i.e. don't melt if exposed to rain, like ours would). There is no framing to the house; the adobe walls are the supporting walls.
When the walls are built, vigas (logs) are placed across the walls to make the roof. Wood planks go on top of the vigas. 50 years ago, when our house was built (it may be older), dirt was then put on the planks. These days they put insulating foam on top of the planks and they build with just one row of adobe and then foam the outside for extra insulation. Our walls are double adobe with no insulation on the outside.
This morning the roofers arrived to "prep" the house. Three of them arrived with rolls of plastic and staple guns. Within two hours the house was covered in plastic. We were not absolutely ready, so we raced ahead of them to get the last things done. I think if we had dawdled, they would have covered us too and stapled us in place.
Living room covered in plastic
Tomorrow the real fun begins. I don't think the dirt will rain down because Valerie's husband Bryan looked at our ceiling and told me the planks are tongue and groove - so there are not big cracks between the boards like in some houses. But we shall see. We had to move out of the house to a vacation rental apartment a few blocks away and Buddy (the cat) had to go to the kennel (he just spent a month there while we were in Hawaii, now a week later, he returns).
One of the reasons we moved to Santa Fe was so we could live in this type of natural house. I love the adobe - the thick walls, the solidness of it, the natural materials. Every time we think of moving, I change my mind when we start looking at houses. I will have to get over this, because we are probably going to move. But at least I had these years in my dirt house.
Eighty years of roofs just came off my house
March 14, 2006
Today there were at least ten guys on the roof removing old layers of roofing. Brian, who owns the roofing company, phoned me at 11 this morning asking me to come over because they had got down to the dirt. We drove over and climbed up on the roof.
- The house looks really small when you are on the roof.
- What views!!
Tearing off the old roof
There were five old roofs (rooves?)! Brian thinks the original dirt roof was from the 1920s or earlier. On top of that was a layer of pitch (I don't know what that is, but I kept a piece), a layer of pumice, and then a few tar and gravel roofs. It seems like when it came time to re-roof that house, everyone just put a new roof on top of what was already there (the code has changed and you can not do this anymore).
They tore off about 5 inches of roofing today and got down to the dirt (the dirt stays).
The dirt roof - 80 to 100 years old
It was an amazing feeling standing up there and seeing the layers of history of the house. It made me fall in love with that house all over again. We bought it originally because it was adobe and small and historic and I realize now what a good choice we made.
Tomorrow the new roof goes on - on top of the dirt.
The weather has been fantastic here. We had a few cold and windy days (our horrible spring weather), then had 6 inches of snow on Sunday, then today the sun came out and it was in the 50s and beautiful.