jrldh - Actually it is on the bottom of page 12 :-) LOL. I read and re-read that paragraph eleventeen times last night looking for loopholes. I'm sure I read this when we got our mortgage and thought to myself, "Nothing like that will ever happen to us." ha ha ha. (I was 23 when we bought this house... cut me a break! ;-) neesie - the insurance used to only work with you, their insured. After Hurricane Charlie in 1992, many people with totaled homes took the insurance money and didn't repair their home, leaving the mortgage co's with no equity in the pile of rubble, and all the insurance money was with the insured in Mexico on the beach :-) So a federal law was passed protecting the mortgage companies interests. I get that. My problem with MY situation is that due to the LTV, their interests are not compromised with 25K of damage, and they have no rights to my money. Sigh. Mariend, I think that I still get to pick the people, they just want 8 forms (I am not exaggerating) filled out by anyone who works on our house and detailed receipts of expenses. I'm basically just too lazy to manage it all given all of our other life's business. Thanks for the tea! This increases my resolve to keep paying 50% extra to principle every month so as not to be beholden to the man. Or slightly less beholden, anyway.

"Maybe you should ask yourself if you would be willing to get up on the roof and do the work for what you are wanting to pay someone else to do it." This is a specious argument and usually one of last resort, when nothing but bluster is left. Seems you miss Adam Smith's point entirely. I write a specific type of software for a living. Would you like to try your hand at it when you need a custom piece written? Didn't think so. That doesn't mean you can't find someone else to do it at a lower price if I insist on charging you a silly figure. Yes I am unskilled at dealing with contractors. And thankful for it, for to acquire that skill would mean lots of practice, which I don't have the stomach for. And yes, I DID learn to do a lot of things for myself. Not to save money (it cost me more money in fact, as I make more than most contractors do per hour) but to save myself the aggravation. This is all I will write on the subject of contractors here. Would still love to get responses on specific questions as asked... thanks for understanding.

Found another Ins. Co. and signed a new policy (same coverage and price), they have the inspection report and the cloth wiring wasn't an issue. Our agent mentioned that they would be doing their own inspection. Talked to our original agent, she wanted to know who the carrier was. I told her, she said she had talked to them as well and they wouldn't cover my house due to the wiring. She has a feeling the new policy will be cancelled as well. Not sure what to do, we have a mortgage and the bank requires us to have insurance. Replacing the wiring would be a major headache, financially and physically, as the walls are plaster lathe and there is no crawl space to access any wires.

Here is a general reference for flat roofs on homes if it applies to your situation. I've designed these roofs for large hotels, hospitals, dormitories, apartments and offices where cost could be justified by longevity so they were very expensive. I did a study of roofing systems for the State Dept. years ago but they were all on concrete slabs with equipment enclosures. None of them drained by scuppers or gutters except for overflow. Gravity draining to the exterior puts you into a special category that, to my knowledge, is not well documented. I would use a fully adhered or loosely laid single ply membrane and pay careful attention to venting if the structure is wood. You might consider a hipped roof with a slope of 1"+/- in a foot with fully adhered single ply membrane rooting over a recovery board over foam insulation board with perimeter gutters. It would appear flat from the ground.