Help! New Roof With Valted Ceiling & No Insulation

[MrFixIt]

My wife and I just bought our first house.
A new 2ply torch-on roof to replace the old tar and gravel was part of the buyer/seller agreement. This is a typical 60's style post and beam house with stunning knotty pine valted ceilings througout. The roof's pitch is about 1.5 Ft drop over a 17ft slope. My wife and I decided to get an inspector to inform us of any problems with the house. The Inspector failed to inform me that the roof had no insulation. He said that it most likely had block foam between the joists but could not be sure unless he could start pulling off boards. The home owner waited till the last day to have the roofers install the roof. We took possession and realized two days after we moved in that the house would cool down rapidly. All of those jerks failed to let me know about this problem. To make things worse the roof deck is directly on top of the knotty pine with no gap to blow insulation. If these creeps had let me know about this I would have gladly shelled out the $$$ to put insulation on the roof deck. Now I fear I will have to insulate the inside and cover up that beautiful pine ceiling because I don't want to tare off a brand new roof. Winter is comming and natural gas prices are up 30% this year. Please, any input on this would be greatly respected and appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[Wgoodrich]

Your pitch leads me to believe you have an almost flat roof of 1/12 pitch. Yet your discription is saying you have an "A" frame type building with knotty pine ceiling/decking type construction. If you have the tongue and groove knotty pine on the under side of your home and this is hot tar pitched whether flat or big pitch you need insulation to be installed.

You could frame a lower ceiling under the decking and install new knotty pine allowing for an insulation of R 30 or more or you could tear off the roof again and lay solid foam boards as a lesser R value making do with easiest to do project.

I suggest you bite the bullet now and lower your ceiling, create enough insulation for your geographic location and save money from there. You probably would make back in heat savings rather quickly at todays heat prices. Do it right now and give up the old Knotty board existing and buy new knotty pine ceiling. Remember you just bought the home and plan to stay there a while. My opinion it would be well worth the money.

Wg