Roof replacement and foundation repair

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I own a condo in a ~80 year old, 2-story brick building. Over the past few decades, one corner of the building has been sinking (a problem common to many buildings in the neighborhood, due to the nature of the soil around here). The HOA is currently working with an engineering team to come up with the right plan to secure the foundation.

In the meanwhile...our roof is out of warranty, damaged, and needs to be replaced. It's a flat EPDM roof and would be replaced with something similar. We don't know how long it's going to take us to pull together the foundation plan, much less bid it out/execute it since contractors are so busy during the summer, but we do have a roof quote ready to go from a reputable company.

What I'm trying to figure out is, do we need to wait until the foundation is repaired before putting on a new roof? I've talked to a piering contractor in the past who said they'd only secure, not raise the building; however, from my online research, I see a lot of talk about foundation contractors raising a building. If we were to slap on a new roof and then the building did shift back up a bit after the foundation repair, would we ruin or in any way compromise the new roof job?

Thanks for any info or links explaining the science behind this.

[Anonymous]

No, the roof wouldn't be damaged nor threatened. The focus of the lifters (right option that fixes everything) or securers (very lame option that fixes nothing) is the brick and cracking open mortar joints, which they then have to permanently repair.

- However, I would wait on the new roof until everything is jacked back up and secured. This way the roofer can pitch the gutters properly and just once. A roof can be faced with a tarp quite cheaply and provide years of performance, I've seen them last as long as 10-years.