A Special Roof for A Special House
The house, located in Barrington Hills, Illinois, had been owned by the Kimberly family who built the home in 1857. On several occasions Theodore Roosevelt, (The 26th President of the United States) who was the cousin of the Kimberly's daughter-in-law, stayed at the home.
The owners insisted on the finest cedar available to replace the old cedar roof. We contacted our suppliers and had them get in contact with the Cedar Shake & Shingle Bureau in Canada. They grade all the cedar that comes into the United States, and any cedar of quality will have their grading tags on each bundle. Unfortunately, most of the cedar, or what's called standard, does not fare well under their grading system. Cedar is all about edge grain and cedar oil density. Edge Grain, which people experienced with cedar can see, shows that the the wood was cut from the prime sections of the log. Cedar oil density can be seen by the color of the wood. The tree that all most all shakes come from is the Western Red Cedar. And the wood should have a very visible rich, reddish-brown color. If the tree is a young tree, and it has not matured to where the wood is rich in color, due to the buildup of the natural cedar oils, it will appear yellow, and it will definitely not last as long as high-quality bureau stock shakes & shingles. High grade bureau stock cedar will last 30 to 40 years with no maintenance. Yellow colored cedar will start to curl up in year 4 or 5-years and will thus need preservations treatments every 3 to 4 years, and will only last 25 years conservatively.
With the cost of a cedar preservation being in the range of three thousand to five thousand dollars these days, and you plan on staying in your home, paying for quality cedar upfront is a no brainer. Of course, we all know about the synthetic cedar look-alikes out there, we install dozens of them every year, but they sure don't look like the cedar on this special house. And, they don't have the heavenly cedar scent.
We are always excited about talking with our clients about cedar so please call us any time!
