City · Hamilton County
Blue Ash homes, from the roof down
Blue Ash occupies a flat plateau in northeastern Hamilton County, high enough above the river valleys that it stayed farmland until the suburbs arrived. The housing is a good fit for its era: 1950s and 1960s brick and frame ranches, split-levels and bi-levels on generous lots, with larger 1980s and 1990s two-stories filled in later. Summit Park stands where the airport used to be, and the office corridor along Reed Hartman Highway sits beside residential streets that have not changed much in shape since they were built.
Sixty years is a long time for a ranch to go without its second or third roof, and many are due. The pitches are modest, the runs are long and the original decking is often planks, so a replacement is as much about what is under the shingles as what goes on. Trees planted when the streets were new now shade the north sides, which is where the moss, held moisture and eave ice turn up. Brick ranches carry their own detail: step flashing at the chimney and the brick-to-siding transitions at the gables, both of which were sealed rather than flashed at some point. Aluminum siding on those gables takes hail dents easily. Long, low ranch rooflines put a great deal of water into a single gutter run with a downspout at each end, and the original aluminum gutters on these streets have sagged between hangers until they hold water instead of moving it.
Blue Ash is a city and issues its own permits, which we pull before the crew is scheduled.