Friday, August 3, 2007

Even When You're Not There to Hate it, Roofing Still Sucks

Lucky for me, I had to go in to work today and take care of some projects. Lucky for the guys doing my roof too, I guess, as without me the temp was only around 83 or so. I came back at lunch and brought them pizza and was surprised to see that they had the whole back side of the house stripped down to the planks. That's about as far as they got on a full day Wednesday with me there to "help", so the cooler weather really gave them a boost. Well, they're also leaving with the wives on Sunday for Vegas so they really kinda needed to move it along so the roof would be done. By the time I got home at 4:15 the felt was down and the roof was about half shingled. I made a run to Menards for another 10 bundles of shingles, as I didn't account for waste or ridge caps in my initial purchase of 60 bundles. I thought it was too good to be true.... By 7:30, the back side of the roof was done, as was the front and one side. All that remains is the other small end of the house and all the ridge work.






Old Lameness (installed about 25 years ago)




New Hotness (installed today)




The history of shingle colors at my place. On the bottom is the original plain gray 3-tab. On top is the second layer, a kind of sandy-tan type of color. Both may have faded over the years, but these should still be pretty close to the original colors.




Whoever invented the Shingle Shear deserves a big sloppy kiss. This thing works great at cutting shingles! My shingles don't come in pre-cut pieces for ridges, and I wasn't looking forward to cutting each shingle into three pieces and then trimming the top edges down. I pee'd a little out of excitement when Steve brought this baby out. It works like a paper shear you used to see in grade school, but it cuts shingles. Each shingle took about 30 seconds to finish cutting into three ready-to-go pieces for the ridge. (this isn't my roof, by the way - it's a stock picture from the internet)



The plan is to have the entire roof done by noon tomorrow. Clean-up of the old shingles will take me days, I'm guessing.

In closing, Your Honor, I humbly submit to you that roofing continues to suck more than any suck that's ever sucked a sucks suck.

3 comments:

Smudgemo said...

Can't be as bad as loading hay on a hot day in the maw of a barn. No direct sun, but tons of dust and itchiness. How about laying insulation in an attic. That would suck too.

Unknown said...

Roofing is a tough job, most especially if the roof is going to be composed of shingles. Installing them would actually take days to finish. Which is why it’s best to hire professional roofers to do the job. But if you think that you can handle it, and you have friends to tag along, then a DIY would be more efficient.
- Nelson Mcglaughlin

Unknown said...

I agree with Nelson that it is best to hire professionals to install roof shingles. It really does take time to place each one, so I hope that you would be patient next time if you have it repaired or restored. Yes it may suck because it isn’t something you’d enjoy doing, but it is necessary to keep your home dry, safe, and secure. I actually think that the men who worked on your roof did a fine job by having finished that much work within a few hours.

Allyson Duguay