Raising the roof over shakes: Homeowners associations insist on them even though some owners raising fire-safety concerns

Jim MacMillan walks into what used to be the bathroom of his home in the Hunters Ridge development near Issaquah and points at the charred cedar shakes filling the bathtub.

"The cedar just went up like that," he says, snapping his fingers.

Above, the early evening light filters through the blue tarp covering his home since July 4, when a bottle-rocket type of firework ignited his wood-shingle roof.

The fire caused $225,000 damage to the $300,000 home, requiring the entire interior to be gutted.

"I'm done with cedar roofs," says MacMillan, whose next roof will be composition.

The Hunters Ridge Homeowners Association adopted new rules in March that allow residents to install fire-resistant composition roofs.

But just a few blocks away, in the Klahanie development, where nearly 10,000 people live, owners of homes with wood-shake roofs are barred from replacing them with any material other than wood.

"That look — cedar siding, cedar shake — defines the Northwest just as tiles and adobe define the Southwest," says Kevin Seward, president of the Klahanie Association board.

Klahanie is one of many Puget Sound-area developments with rules requiring homeowners to have shake roofs. In fact, even the chief of Eastside Fire and Rescue is prohibited from using anything but wood for his roof in the Swiftwater development in Carnation.

Chief Lee Soptich says he plans to lobby his homeowners' association to change its rules and will urge other developments to do so.

"If there are dry conditions, a fire will literally race across the roof" if it is made of wood, Soptich says.

Lobbying is exactly what a group of Klahanie residents have been doing for more than a year.

Sitting around the dining-room table of Amielia Stevens, 10 neighbors peruse a handbill they later distributed around Klahanie. The flier urges residents to ask board members to allow homeowners to install composition roofs.

"I'm not saying, 'Take the cedar choice away from people,' " says Stevens, who estimates there are at least two dozen active members of the group.

"Just give us a choice. I don't think they should have control over our property when it's a matter of preventing fire damage."

Over the past several weeks, Stevens and others have put the handbills in the doors of about 1,800 homes and talked to about 45 residents, says Jan Torell, another resident who has taken up the cause.

"Every person we talked to was supportive of us," she says.

"A lot of people had no idea they couldn't change their roof to composition."

Klahanie Director Shannon Barghols says the association would probably "take legal action" against homeowners who try to replace their shake roofs with composition ones.

Fearing a lawsuit, Emily Schroeder in May reluctantly installed wood shingles even though her first choice was composite.

"You're given the paperwork and CCRs (covenants, conditions and restrictions) before you sign the documents to buy a house," says board Vice President Kelly McBride.

"If you don't want to abide by the rules, you shouldn't live in a development like Klahanie. I believe in safety, too, but we can't have people just do what they want."

Seattle real-estate attorney Gary Ackerman confirms the power of CCRs. Homeowner-association rules against composition roofs are legally enforceable, he says.

Some parts of Klahanie — in general, neighborhoods with less-expensive homes — were built with composition roofs, and residents in those areas must use roofing materials that match the "overall appearance" of the original roof.

McBride and other board members say they fear composition roofs would lower property values in the development. And they say other homeowners agree.

But real-estate brokers in the Issaquah area say high-quality composition roofs do not lower home prices.

In fact, some out-of-town buyers — especially those from California, where many cities have banned shake roofs for fire safety — specifically request houses with composition roofs, says Alan Berkwitt, a broker with Coldwell Banker Bain Associates in Issaquah.

"As long as it's an architecturally appealing material, I've never had anyone say, `I wouldn't want to buy a house because it has composition,' " Berkwitt says.

The Klahanie residents trying to change the rules say they support rules requiring residents to use only high-quality composition materials; the eight products they recommend cost between $9,700 and more than $17,000 for an average Klahanie home and have warranties of at least 40 years.

In fact, Hunters Ridge — which consists of 106 homes — adopted new roof rules not because of fire prevention, but because most cedar shakes now on the market are inferior to the ones installed a decade or two ago, and because the new composition products are more attractive than they used to be, says Connie Allen, president of the Hunters Ridge board.

Torell points at her 15-year-old roof, which has several visibly fraying shakes, even after she spent $1,000 last year on roof repairs.

"That's a ratty-looking roof," she says.

The first Klahanie homes were occupied in 1985, and "many of us are now thinking of replacing our roofs," she says.

"We don't want to replace them with firewood, and that's what this is — it's fire kindling."

Last year, Torell helped lead a drive to repeal the shake-roof rule, but the Klahanie board unanimously voted the proposal down. On July 17, board members agreed to revisit the issue.

Seward, board president, says the primary factor for him in the debate is property values. He says the July 4 Hunters Ridge fire is irrelevant.

"The fire situation is an emotional thing," he says.

"We don't make emotional decisions. We make business decisions."

Seward says the main problem is that King County — Klahanie is part of unincorporated King County — allows fireworks.

"To me the main issue might not be roofs, but should we better regulate fireworks," he says.

Both are issues as far as MacMillan is concerned. He and his wife, Leslie, were away when the July 4 fire destroyed much of their home, but a neighbor took a photograph of the blaze.

"I mean, this thing just exploded," MacMillan says, pointing at a photo of flames leaping from his roof.

"The speed that it spread — that's what concerns me," says Margaret Murphey, who lives across the street from the MacMillan house and called 911 to report the fire.

"If it happened at night, would we even wake up in time?"

Murphey could wait another six or seven years before replacing her shake roof, but, after seeing the MacMillans' home burn, she has decided to install a composition roof within six months — even if she has to take out a $15,000 loan to do it.

"That roof's coming off," Murphey says as she stands in the doorway of her home and gestures at her 13-year-old son Cameron, who is running down the driveway.

"My son sleeps under that roof every night."

David Olson can be reached at homes@seattletimes.com.