Sunnyland earned its name from real estate optimism, not meteorology — this flat grid of streets north of downtown Bellingham gets the same forty-some inches of rain as the rest of the city. What the neighborhood actually has is one of Bellingham's best collections of small bungalows and postwar cottages, built from the 1920s through the 1940s, most of them on their third or fourth roof by now. Alpine Exteriors handles reroofs, repairs, and the ventilation problems that come standard with houses this age.
Small Houses, Specific Roof Problems
Sunnyland's homes share a set of quirks we know by heart. Attics are shallow and often barely vented, so winter moisture from the living space condenses on the underside of the sheathing — we regularly find mold-blackened plywood under shingles that look fine from the street. Additions are everywhere: back bedrooms and porches added over the decades, usually at a lower pitch than the main roof, with a transition seam that becomes the first place to leak. And because these are modest houses, previous owners often shopped on price alone, leaving behind thin three-tab shingles and shortcuts we end up correcting.
Our reroofs treat the attic and the roof as one system. Ridge and intake venting get corrected during the tear-off, bathroom fans that have been dumping steam into the attic for thirty years get ducted through the roof properly, and low-pitch addition sections get membrane roofing instead of shingles stretched past their rated slope.