The Durable Slate Company arrives on the scene in Chevy Chase, Maryland. They are doing a full renovation on this historical building. John Chan of The Durable Slate Company will walk you through the process.
John Chan: Hi, I’m John with Durable Slate. We’re here in Chevy Chase Circle right where Maryland and Washington D.C. meet and we’re at one of the corners at All Saints Church.
All Saints Church was built right at the turn of the century and it was a beautiful church with stone walls and a beautiful Virginia Buckingham slate roof. Well, the church expanded in 1920s, so they built a huge addition and then in the 40s, again, another huge addition. Well, these additions used the same stone, but they actually chose a lower grade black slate. They used the Pennsylvania black slate which, when it was brand new look dark just like the Buckingham. But over time as you got UV rays, as you got ice when, etc. These slates turned brown, gray, and they’re all flaking apart and when they start coming down, it becomes dangerous because this is a church as well as a school.
So what we’re doing right now is we’re tearing off all of the Pennsylvania black slate, inspecting all the deck, replacing all the tongue and groove deck, as well as the soffit, the fascia. Anything that’s been damaged by water. We’re putting on a new Virginia black slate. The Buckingham that matches the original, and we’re also replacing the copper gutters, all the flashings, the valleys and the cricket pans.
We’re using 20 ounce copper, so that’s very long lasting. All of this copper is being installed with lead free solder and it’s being installed with expansion joints so that it moves and will last a very long time unlike the original copper that was put on in the 20s and in the 40s.
So we’re gonna have a beautiful slate roof that matches the old original roof. So that’s got the same look as the original church, so it shares that vision of the original architect but we used modern durable technology, so that lasts much, much longer.
And now that we’re wrapping up we’re actually gonna go to the other side of Chevy Chase Circle and restore another historic church called Blessed Sacrament. We’ll see you then.
