Our houses are pretty complicated, just like our cars and our bodies. The question is when will you decide that it's time to learn the anatomy of a house? Most people won't make this decision until they're forced to … because of an emergency. Maybe their roof is leaking, the hot water heater dumped it's water on the floor or they've got two feet of water in the basement (I've seen it all personally or when I ran my handyman business).
One of the most popular articles on my website is the anatomy of a roof, titled Roofing Layers – What's Underneath Your Shingles. Unless writing a book becomes a priority (my favorite homeowner books), it's unlikely I'll find time to write everything … so I'm going to share links to websites that have done a good job of illustrating and explaining the home components you may someday need to learn about.
Anatomy of a House Exterior
The illustration above gives you some of the terminology you might use when talking to a contractor but there's a lot more detail than you can see there … or see just by looking at your house (unless you can see through walls?).
All About Chimney Parts
When writing for others, it's important to be accurate in how you describe things (that's why we have a glossary). Not sure I remembered the correct name for a cricket, I searched for the anatomy of a chimney which one of my handyman customers asked us to build.
While I found this well written article, All About Chimney Parts, which I wanted to share … it didn't talk about crickets, LOL. That's why you often have to review 3 to 5 articles in order to get a complete picture … so I found another great video from my new friend, the Roofer Chick, explaining What is a Chimney Cricket?
Roofing Layers – What's Underneath Your Shingle
When I owned a handyman business in southern New Hampshire, we dealt with lots of roof leaks. While my only hands-on experience working on a roof was the Home Builder & Remodeler pro bono roof we did each winter, I learned a lot about roofs and wrote … Roofing Layers – What's Underneath Your Shingle.
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