Northbrook is a Chicago north suburban village with a rich history. One fun fact is that Northbrook was not always known as Northbrook, it was originally known as Shermerville named after Frederick Schermer who donated his land for its first train station. The village was officially known as Northbrook in 1923 which was voted by the citizens.
Today Northbrook is a vibrant community with lots to see and do. One of our favorite things to do when in Northbrook is to visit the River Trail Nature Center with our families and go hiking. The nature center has a small zoo and has both a maple syrup festival and a honey festival with its active bee hives! Nickel City Family Arcade is another fun place to go with the family with many classic arcade games where Pacman is a must play!
Northbrook is also home to many beautiful and stunning homes. Several of these homes in Northbrook feature mansard roofs. Mansard roofs are generally characterized with a normal roof slope on top of the home with a lower roof slope that comes down where siding would typically be on a home on the top level. The lower roof will run even lower than the top levels windows. That is why when replacing a mansard roof replacing the window wraps may also be required.
The photo at the top of the page shows a mansard roof that we completed as Northbrook roofing contractors. Not only was this home a mansard roof but it also had concrete tiles as you can see in the photo below. This was the only home in the entire neighborhood with concrete tiles. We found out that the home was built and lived in by the builder for the neighborhood. The builder wanted to do something different than all the other homes he built and is why he opted for a concrete tiled roof. Today concrete tiles are extremely rare especially in the Chicagoland area.
In the photo below you can see the condition of the concrete tiles. Our client had some repairs done over the years but the roof was in very bad condition overall as you can see in the photo. In defense of the original Northbrook roofing contractor, this roof was on for over 50 years!
In the photo below you can see that there was no decking whatsoever beneath the concrete tiles! Decking is what shingles get nailed and secured to so we had to install plywood decking on the entire roof and mansard roof. Mansard roofs are already very intricate jobs but having to install all new decking made this an even more involved project. We installed 5/8 inch decking on the top of the roof and ½ inch decking on the mansard portions. Many of the components like the black commercial drip edge where the normal roof meets the mansard roof are in short supply so very detailed planning is a must with these projects. When we do Mansard roofs we will install ice & water shield on all of the mansard portions for the ultimate protection.
In the photo below you will see us caping the windows (also commonly referred to as wrapping). With many mansard roof configurations, caping the windows will be necessary to do a proper install. Our client was looking for a Northbrook roofing contractor that could handle all aspects of their job from gutters, facia, soffit, and window wraps since all were necessary to complete this job properly. Our client found us working on one of their neighbors homes and loved the work we did there so had us out to look at their home.
The photo below this paragraph shows what the window wraps looked like when we were completed. They wanted the wraps to match the black shingles so opted for black window capping which we thought looked best as well.
In the two photos below you will see what the roof looked like in the back yard before and after we completed this Northbrook roof replacement project.
Contact Lifetime Xteriors today so that we can schedule an appointment to see if we can help you with any of our roofing services. We love what we do and we hope to be your Northbrook roofing contractor of choice.