Dayton Daily News - December 13, 2004

By Lou Grieco

GERMANTOWN | Thirteen decades after workers erected the steeple of Emmanuel's Evangelical Lutheran Church, most of the slate shingles they put up are still there.

Most of the craftsmen who work with slate, however, vanished long ago, along with their slate roofs.

"It's pretty much a dying art," said George Cole, a slate mechanic with Durable Slate Company, a Columbus-based restoration contractor.

Cole is restoring Emmanuel's 140-foot steeple, visible across the village.

Though church officials said the total work, including replacing some wood and painting, will cost the church $27,000, only six of the original slate shingles needed to be replaced, Cole said.

That's a break for the church. Though slate is durable some roofs in Europe have lasted more than 400 years —it's also expensive. Slate comes mostly from quarries on the nation's eastern seaboard.

Bob Stalnaker (red hat) and George Cole of The Durable Slate Company paint the louvers on the steele of the Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Germantown. The church has a new slate roof and steeple and renovation the the wood trim.

Slate can cost anywhere from $800 to $1,200 per square, or 100 square feet, said Cherie Downey, director of public relations for Durable Slate. Standard roofing shingles cost between $200 to $500 per square.

Labor costs are also higher with slate, which is heavier than standard roofing shingle and takes longer to work with, she said.

"The economy of slate comes in with its long life span," Downey said. "Especially for institutional buildings where they know they're going to be there."

Other factors can drive up the costs, such as working with complex architecture or renting equipment such as the crane hoisting Cole and another worker up to the church's steeple.

Durable Slate does much of the slate roofing across Ohio, including in Dayton, where the company continues repairs on the slate roof at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 125 N. Wilkinson St. Downey estimates 1 percent to 2 percent of homes in Columbus and Dayton have slate roofs.

When Durable Slate was founded in 1986, there were no schools teaching slate roofing skills. The founder, who has since sold the business, learned the basics from an older craftsman, Downey said.

A new employee at Durable Slate spends about 40 hours in the company's in-house classroom, studying a dozen courses, followed by hours of on-the job training, Downey said.

It takes three to six months to achieve the novice level, knowing how to replace a broken slate and install ridge metal and vent boot flashings.

After three to five years a slate mechanic can lay out a new roof, install slate on a turret or put a copper flat-lock roof across a bay window or porch.

The tools are basic, Downey said.

A slate hammer has a head on one end for pounding nails and a point on the other for punching holds in the slate. Slate tiles hang from the nails and are not nailed down.

Slate is not difficult to cut, but "it's sometimes brittle," Cole said. "It's about like working with glass. It can be sharp."

A skilled craftsman can cut tiles quickly, but a mechanic who makes repeated mistakes soon drives up the company's cost, Cole said.

A skilled mechanic can replace a slate tile in two to three minutes, Cole said.

Years ago, the parish replaced the slate church roof with aluminum tiles designed to look like slate, said Joe Emrick, a parishioner who serves on the steeple project committee.

The steeple holds the last of the original slate. Pastor Michael Havey said the steeple's high pitch keeps ice and snow from damaging the slate.

"The slate is already there," Emrick said. "We're just refurbishing it, preserving it."

Proponents of historic preservation will applaud the church's efforts to keep the original craftsmanship alive. But to the parish, it's about keeping one of the town's oldest and most visible landmarks intact.

"People in need can look for the steeple," Emrick said.

Contact Lou Grieco at 225-2057.