St. Andrew’s Cathedral, a towering presence in downtown Victoria since 1892, is in the final stages of getting a new roof.
It has been a daunting project as crews replaced aging slate tiles with copper sheeting, braving dizzying heights and steep pitches and solving tricky angles for the first roof replacement in more than a century at the historic cathedral.
“The project is more challenging than even we thought it would be,” said Rod Parker, president of Parker Johnston, a Victoria roofing company dating back to 1950 through three generations.
“Even with 70 years of experience, a lack of historical comparisons made the estimating and installation tough,” Parker said. “We’re extremely happy with the finished product and proud of the tradespeople who work with us who ultimately make these things possible.”
Chris Ryzuk, a retired geotechnical engineer and parishioner of the Catholic cathedral, said the new roof is valued at about $500,000. It has been planned since 2011, and got underway in July after the parish completed extensive studies on materials, costs and various approvals.
Ryzuk expects the project to be completed by the end of the month.
It’s only the second full re-roofing project in the 128-year history of St. Andrew’s. The cathedral’s original roof was tin covering board and batten that lasted for about 25 years. It was replaced with slate.
“The typical lifespan to replace slate is about 100 years, so it’s lasted well,” Ryzuk said.
The cathedral had patches of the roof repaired and replaced in the mid-1980s, but had to use a cheaper tile because the matching slate were not available at the time. The new copper sheets now match the spire, which was clad in copper during the 1980s repairs.
Because the cathedral has provincial and city heritage status, the use of copper had to be approved. The new roof is expected to last more than 100 years.
“We had to ask ourselves how long do we want the roof to last, and what is the cost of the roof versus the cost of maintenance over a long term,” Ryzuk said. “The cathedral rector [Father John Lafzezyk] said 100 years.”
The slate pieces were carefully removed and lowered to ground, where they will be available to parishioners as keepsakes or garden works, he said.
St. Andrew’s Cathedral was dedicated on Oct. 30, 1892, by Bishop John Lemmens. It was designed by Montreal church architects Maurice Perrault and Albert Mesnard on duplicate plans of a parish church in Vaudreuil, Que.
Ryzuk said the cathedral has had a steady stream of improvements over the years, including repairs to its stained-glass windows, a complete changeover to LED lighting inside and the remediation of some failing arches on the eastern facade and bell tower.
Ryzuk, who has worked on several major projects around the city, including dozens of churches, said many of the older buildings are in rough shape “because most were built with volunteer labour.”
There is a crypt located in the basement of the cathedral beneath the sanctuary. Entombed there are the bodies of Bishop Modeste Demers, the first bishop of Victoria; Archbishop Charles J. Seghers, Victoria’s second and fourth bishop, who was murdered in Alaska; and Rt. Rev. John J. Jonckau, a former vicar-general of the diocese. Headstones honouring the men are located on the southeast lawn beside the cathedral. — From the St. Andrew’s archives