I’ve ranted before, probably ceaselessly, about how I loathed the cedar shake roof that was, until just recently, on our house.
From weathering badly, to growing moss easily, to catching fire with astonishing ease (and yes, I have tried it with the scraps. For the record, old cedar shakes are GREAT kindling.) that roof has been on my nerves for almost 10 years.
So this year we had finally gotten the home equity loan that we took out to pay for the sewer and the rest of the godforsaken (but greatly appreciated) remodel from two years ago paid down enough to consider pulling more money from it for a roof.
We talked to the bank. We did our homework. We had three different companies come out to look the roof over and give us bids.
And we chose Bellevue Roofing. We went with Bellevue Roofing because their bid was comparable to the other two that we had gotten. Because their estimate was thorough… going so far as to be extremely detailed in what services they would provide, defining terms etc. etc. It’s the first time I’ve gotten a four page estimate for a total of something like six line items. It was absolutely clear what we would be getting.
We went with Bellevue Roofing because they are a locally owned company and because they purchase their materials from a locally owned company.
We went with Bellevue Roofing because they could get their people out within *two days* of us signing the contract and they could finish in three. As it turns out, because of one thing and another on our side and on theirs, they didn’t start work for (gasp!) a week after we signed the contract and the vast majority of the work was done in (GASP!) two days.
And I couldn’t have been more pleased about the service they provided. Y’all will have noticed that I’m a little obsessive about my garden. I’m always anxious when I have people working around my garden who might not take the care around my landscaping that I think my landscaping needs.
These guys were GOOD. They were careful about their approach on to the roof, they were careful about their removal of the old roof, and they were extremely diligent in doing the cleanup afterwards. In three weeks I’ve only found the occasional scrap of cedar shake or composition shingle and I have found not one nail. And in three weeks I have done a LOT of digging around in the dirt around the house.
The counter flashing around the chimney needed to be replaced. It’s an odd sized chimney so they weren’t sure that the pre-made counter flashing would fit. It didn’t. So they had their metal shop custom make one to fit and when it was finished (a week or so after the roof was done), one of the owners of the business came out himself to install it.
Bellevue Roofing was thorough, fast, and professional and I would recommend them without hesitation.

The only regret I have is that I’ve wanted to replace those shakes with a metal roof so I can spell things out on the roof in giant refrigerator magnets so people in passing airplanes can read my roof. We couldn’t afford a metal roof so I’ll just have to make do with 50 year composite shingles and console myself with the fact that I’ll *never* (at least not in my lifetime and barring weather, earthquake, or other acts of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) have to replace the roof again. 😀