Witch hat in Asheville’s historic district.

Witch hat in Asheville, NC

In Asheville’s historic district, a vintage witch hat crowns this mansion.  Like most traditional witch hats, the roofing consisted of tin shingles, often in a smaller size than is now available.

So what are the choices of a leaky hat?  New metal shingles, such as from Berridge or WF Norman, would look awkwardly large due to the sizing of modern shingles.  Most owners resort to asphalt shingles-tacky, tacky!!

Usually the best alternative is preserving the existing shingles.

Roofing crew take on the hat

Perhaps there are other names for a witch hat, such as “bonnet”, “pepper pot” or bishop’s mitre”
but Lester and his crew only use the phrase “witch hat”.    And with good reason.

For me, whenever I see one on a possible roof project, I automatically add another day to the timing of the project.

As a comparison, suppose you are painting a floor four times over that is 15 ft by 20 ft several times over.  Now imagine on one of walls about 8 ft from the floor, a 5 ft circular cone’s base is fastened to the wall.

Your job is to apply the same paint to all cone’s surface area, leaving all surfaces without blemishes.   Do you do all the con’s work first so that nothing drips or scuffs the flooring, which means waiting two days before starting the flooring, or do some of both.  As a complication, the top coats only last 3 hours in the pail before hardening, which means wastage of material on the cone.  In brief, Lester earns his money.

In Asheville, a 40 ft ladder and several short days did the trick.

Advantage to the owner

There were three advantages for the owner in this project. First, the leaking was resolved. Secondly, the original shingles were preserved in their original tint. And finally, the price fell into her budget.