Update on Roof Replacements and Structural Work at the Rectory

We’ve had a very busy past several weeks at the church, with lots and lots of trucks and roofers coming and going! After two weeks of work, finishing touches on the flat roofs were completed Tuesday, December 8.

Despite the near freezing temperatures, teams of roofers arrived bright and early on Monday, December 7 and began removing the slate tiles from the sanctuary roof. It was abundantly evident from the brittle chunks and dust cascading off the roof that the slate tiles were definitely at the tail end of their useful life. We were fortunate to have the beautiful slate adorning our church for the past 72 years, and even more fortunate to be replacing them before experiencing a catastrophic failure! While it was prohibitively expensive to replace the old slate with new slate tiles, the new asphalt shingles are warranted to last 50 years. There has been some water damage to the classroom wing and office, and minor damage in the sanctuary, but thankfully, the damage was not as extensive as we had feared.

The next step is to move on to the structural work at the Rectory. We hope to finalize permits and contracts on that work by the end of the year or early in 2021. This has been a busy, and very costly, year for major maintenance projects that have been discussed and anticipated for at least the past twenty-five years.

We continue to work on the financing of these projects with a mix of drawing down existing funds and taking out a loan. As was noted previously, we are not inclined to embark on a fundraising campaign right now in the midst of a pandemic, but year-end contributions to help defray the costs of the roof replacements will be gratefully accepted!