Mark J Gordon Construction's New Online Home

We have enjoyed providing this educational blog as a public service, but the About page hasn't been meeting our business needs. We do not want to clutter up this space with too much information about our services, but we have been frustrated at our limited ability to show potential customers what we can do for them. We also think you deserve to have a more complete concept of who is sponsoring this blog.

The solution to all of this:

MarkJGordonConstruction.com

We'd love for you to come over and visit. Meanwhile, we'll continue providing informative posts to help you take better care of your home or workplace.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

This Year's New Home Trends

Back in December, RealEstateBook.com published a list of six new trends they expected to be big in 2015. If you are planning to spruce up your house and put it on the market, these are changes you may want to consider. If you are looking for a change to freshen up your home for yourself and your family, you might consider the ideas.

Here are their predictions:

1. Luxury vinyl tile flooring
2. More painted kitchen cabinets and less stainless steel
3. Maintenance-free countertops instead of granite
4. Cooler bathroom colors
5. Keeping rooms
6. Bigger closets and bathrooms

Read the full article here:

New Home Trends You Should Know About in 2015

Now that we're nearly 2 1/2 months in, do you think they guessed right?

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

Did This Winter's Weather Make Your Roof Leak?

A lot of New Hampshire home and business owners have seen their roofs damaged from the weather this winter. Heavy snow loads have weakened and even broken a lot of rafters. Leaks caused by ice dams have created a lot of water damage. And plenty of shingles and gutters need to be replaced.

But none of this is the fault of the weather alone. Believe it or not, a well-built New Hampshire roof can handle the kind of winter we just had with no problem. It's only roofs that were in need of repair, or built too cheaply to begin with, that had any trouble.

If your roof did get beaten up by the weather this winter, the bad news is that it was already not in great shape before the snow came. But the good news is that you can prevent these problems in future years, even if we get the same kind of weather.

The ideal New Hampshire roof has:

 

 A strong structure and a pitch that fits the climate

Have you ever wondered why a Roman villa has a flat roof, but an alpine chalet has a steep one? It's not just a matter of culture. Steep roofs not only shed more snow, but can hold a lot more weight, too. How steep a New Hampshire roof needs to be depends on how strongly built it is. Or, to put it another way, how strongly it needs to be built depends on how steep it is.

Plenty of insulation

No matter how strong your roof is, it still isn't likely to make it through a winter like this one without damage unless it's properly insulated. Roof insulation does more than just help reduce your heating bills and your carbon footprint; it's an essential part of the roof. Inadequate insulation can result in ice dams, excessive icicles, damaged shingles and leaks. And of course, leaks cause their own chain of water damage and rot.

Adequate venting

Leaks are not the only thing to cause dripping ceilings, water spots and rotting in a house. This water may not even be coming from outdoors if your roof is not properly vented. The air naturally has some moisture in it, and activities like cooking and breathing add even more. Without sufficient venting, this moisture will collect and destroy your house.

The Right Way to Handle Snow and Ice on Your Roof

 

Modern roofing materials are manufactured to stand up to decades of rough weather. But they are not

meant to be scraped with shovels or hit with hammers.

Don't try to clear all the snow off: leave half an inch still on there. Asphalt shingles, especially, are very brittle in the winter, and you can easily damage them and create roof leaks. But even if that doesn't happen, scraping the shingles will take years off their life. If you have rubber roofing, then a little hit from the corner of your shovel could gouge a hole. The point is to take most of the weight off and relieve the stress on the rafters.

It may be tempting to try to physically remove all the ice from your roof, but that would tear it up. The best plan of attack is to break the ice off below the eaves to remove most of the weight, and then use calcium chloride to melt channels into the ice and let it fall off by itself. Make sure you are using calcium chloride, not rock salt or magnesium chloride.

When to Call in a Contractor

 

Sometimes hiring a contractor is less expensive than doing the job yourself. For example, Ice dams and icicle clusters can be very heavy and fall in unpredictable directions. Chipping off roof ice is a lot like felling a tree: it takes a lot of training and experience to learn how to control the fall. Not hiring a professional in this case could cost you a window, or even your life.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

Should You Shovel Your Roof?

Roof shoveling is a cold, hard job, and nobody wants to do it unless it's necessary. But you don't want to risk having your roof collapse on you, either. So how do you know whether your roof needs it?

There are a few factors to consider:

• The depth of the snow on the roof
• The size of the roof
• The strength of the roof
• The pitch (steepness) of the roof
• Ice dams

Weight and Strength

It's pretty intuitive: how much snow a roof can take depends on how strong it is. Smaller roofs will naturally be stronger, per square foot, than larger roofs. This is because there's a shorter distance between the uprights (walls or porch support posts, for example). So each rafter has a shorter span and can hold more weight per square foot without sagging.

Structural Strength

How much weight your roof can take will also depend on how beefy the rafters are, how far apart they were placed, whether any of them are starting to rot, and whether the house was put together correctly. Modern construction standards call for rafters to be made of at least 2x8 lumber (ideally, 2x10) and be placed 16 inches apart.

Roof Pitch

If you got good grades in geometry, you can probably visualize how your roof's pitch affects its strength. Generally speaking, the steeper the roof is, the more its weight is transferred down to the outer walls. So a steeper roof can handle more snow without endangering its rafters.

Ice Dams

Ice dams can occur when a roof is not sufficiently insulated. Heat leaks out through the roof and melts the snow that's sitting on top of it. That melted snow runs to the edge of the roof and starts to drip off. But since it's no longer being heated, it turns to ice. Over time, that ice can build up and even crawl under the shingles and lift them up. Then when it melts on a sunny day, it usually causes water damage inside your home.

If your roof has an ice dam problem, then you need to remove the snow before it can melt and ruin your roof, your ceiling and more. And, of course, you should insulate your roof or attic to fix the problem.

When in Doubt, Shovel

It may not be fun, but it's easier to shovel your roof when it doesn't need it than to rebuild your house after the roof collapses.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

Facts About Insulation New Hampshire Homeowners Need to Know

Without sufficient insulation, New Hampshire houses are extremely expensive to live in. And since most homeowners know this, it's mind-boggling how many of our houses are still severely under-insulated.

Two weeks ago we talked about how to use the snow melt patterns on your roof to see if it's properly insulated or not. Basically, if the snow there has melted unevenly - and there's no other reason for it, such as sunshine partially blocked by trees - then it's being melted by heat escaping through your roof. Heat is supposed to be inside your house.

It's really quite alarming that in spite of a struggling economy, and in spite of growing public awareness of climate change and its causes, snow melt patterns show up on practically every street in our towns and dot our country roads.

And that's just the roofs. We can only guess how many basements, sills, walls, doors and windows have the same problems. But one thing is clear: when it comes to insulation, New Hampshire houses are generally in bad shape. Which means New Hampshire homeowners are pumping a lot of perfectly-useless carbon into the atmosphere, and paying a lot of money to do so.

How does the heat get out?

There are basically three ways that houses tend to lose heat:

1. Air exchange: Warm air can leak out of your house, and cold air can rush in. This happens when
   
   there are gaps in the foundation, around the sills, or at the windows and doors. It also happens if you don't have (and properly use) a double-door entry.
2. Convection: Since cold air is heavier than warm air, it falls to the bottom of its space and pushes the warm air up. That's why ceiling fans are such an important part of a home heating system. But even if you use ceiling fans, warm air is still going to collect under the roof. And a poorly-insulated roof will suck the heat right out of it.
3. Conduction: Heat is like water: it always tries to even itself out. If one side of a wall is warm and the other is cold, then the heat on the warm side will conduct through the wall to get to the cold side. Of course, that's a very unscientific way of putting it, but it helps us get a pretty accurate mental picture of what actually happens. The reason insulation works is that some materials conduct heat better than others. Air is a very poor conductor (but it has to be kept from flowing), and therefore most insulation is, essentially, encapsulated air.

So what can you do about it?

Here are some steps you can take to stop paying for the privilege of heating the sky:

1. Close up your drafts. Start in the basement and go all the way up to the attic. Make sure there are no cracks or gaps in your house. Make sure your roof or attic vents are right for the New Hampshire climate and working properly.
2. Use two doors. When you enter or exit your house in the winter, do so only through an enclosed (not screened) porch, mudroom or garage. Make sure one door is closed before you open the other. You may be surprised, but a lot of air is exchanged when you use only one door, even if there's no wind.
3. Insulate. Insulate your foundation, insulate your walls, insulate your roof.
4. Make sure all your windows and doors are thermal. And then insulate them with thermal drapes or window quilts. Yes, even thermal windows leak heat unless the sun is on them. Make it a habit to close your drapes every night - ideally, as soon as it gets dark out.
5. Stop thermal bridging. Thermal bridging is heat conducting out through solid building materials in between the pieces of insulation, such as through the rafters of a roof or the studs of a wall. Today's state-of-the-art building methods prevent thermal bridging, but most existing houses need to be retro-fitted to stop it.

With proper insulation, New Hampshire houses can be comfortably heated for a fraction of the 'normal' cost in fuel, money and pollution.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

The Kinds of Roofing New Hampshire Homeowners Can Choose From

We put on this metal roof in Weare.

When it comes to roofing, New Hampshire homeowners have a lot of choices. While there are a few materials that don't stand up well to cold weather, such as terra cotta tile, most roofing materials are still an option. If it's time to replace your roof, or you're building a new house, here are some questions you can ask as you look at your roofing material options:

• Is it appropriate for the pitch (steepness) of your roof?
• How long it will last?
• How heavy is it?
• How well does it match the style of your house?
• How much does it cost to buy?
• How much does it cost to install?
• How much does it cost to maintain?

Some options to consider:

• Asphalt shingles
• Composite
• Wooden shingles
• Slate
• Rubber
• Ballast system
• Membrane
• Metal
• Green roof
• Solar shingles 

If you have any questions about roofing materials, fill out the form to the right, and we'll be happy to help. It's probably an issue we've run into before, because our family has been roofing New Hampshire houses for three generations. 

The asphalt shingle dormered gambrel roof on this shed matches

the roof on the customer's house. That's because we custom-built

the shed to look like a miniature version of the house.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction

New Hampshire Homewners, Is Your Roof Trying to Tell You Something?

Next time you're outside, take a look at your roof. Is there snow on it? If you can see where the rafters are by the snow melt pattern, then your house has a heat-loss problem. Or if the snow cover has obvious bare spots, that's a sign of trouble, too.


There are three common roof snow melt patterns:

1. Bare spots. A bare spot in an otherwise snow-covered roof means that heat is leaking out in that location. That probably means you have a hole in your insulation, or that your insulation in that place is compromised in some way. You may even have a family of squirrels living in your attic.
2. Melting between the rafters. If you can see lines of snow over your rafters, then your roof is under-insulated. It's okay if the snow slides off the roof, blows off or melts off with the heat of the sun. But if the snow is disappearing between the rafters and not on top of them, it's not the sun that's melting it. You're paying to heat the sky.
3. Melting on top of the rafters. If you see snow everywhere except on your rafters, then you have a problem called thermal bridging. Thermal bridging occurs when heat conducts out through solid material. Your roof may have plenty of insulation between the rafters, but if the rafters themselves are conducting enough heat to melt snow, your insulation's not doing you a lot of good.

If your roof shows any of these signs of heat loss, it's probably past time to call your contractor. Most homeowners find that the cost of the work is more than made up for in energy savings.

Thanks,

New Hampshire Construction