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.

Roofing Still Sucks, Day 2

Today was pretty much a duplicate of yesterday with regards to the heat. Low 90's and plenty of sun. Before the guys got here to get working, I took a few pictures of where we stopped yesterday. The front has most of the felt laid down and it's ready for shingles. I have a little bit of clean-up to do as well. Mr. Good-Judgment says shingles and nails do not make a safe path to the front door.




As I mentioned yesterday, I was considering getting a dumpster because loading the shingles into a trailer, taking them to the dump, and then unloading them by hand sucks. I got a couple of prices this morning, and of the two companies in the running, the one I went with was not only $100 cheaper for a 20 yard (they didn't have a 15 yard so I got the next size up for no extra cost), but could also deliver within two hours and I could keep the thing for 60 days. The other place would pick up in 5 days, didn't have anything the size I needed, and cost more. Not a hard decision to make... The car ramps at the door of the dumpster allow me to pull the trailer for my garden tractor into the dumpster so I can fill it from one end to the other. This work still sucks, but it doesn't suck as bad as taking the shingles to the dump. $290 well spent.




By around 10:30 they were making decent progress considering the heat. I think the shingles are a little darker than I had wanted, but it's too late now. It's hard to get a good feel for shingle color when you only have a 3' x 3' display to look at. It's not perfect, but it's good enough.




Anybody who is re-roofing their house or even if you're just having the whole thing done for you, if there is tear-off involved, buy one of these rolling magnets! I was amazed at how many nails I found a few feet from where the shingles were landing. I guess they make a run for it when they're finally free from the roof.




End of day, day 2. The front is done and the right side is about 70% done. Timing was pretty good, because just as we were getting the last bit of material down to protect against the 20% chance of rain, we had about 10 minutes of light rain. It was just enough to get everything wet, but not enough to do any damage to exposed areas.



I'm ending this post with a quick few words of wisdom. Roofing sucks. Roofing Sucks. Roofing SUCKS. Next time you get an estimate for having a roof replaced and wonder why it costs so much, it's because the work sucks. I honestly can't believe people do this for a living in hotter climates than Wisconsin. I'd sooner french-kiss a rabid badger than do this again.

Roofing in 93 Degree Heat SUCKS

Re-roofing the house started today as planned. By noon it was 93 degrees and sunny. No shade, no breeze. The two guys I hired busted ass until around 2:00, at which time they had to stop working until around 6:00. They were sweating like pigs, and that was a very reasonable request considering I'm getting a good deal on the job to begin with. I was very impressed with how they handled the heat, something I can't do. I was chasing shingles, doing clean-up, etc but I just couldn't handle the heat (I came very close to getting heat stroke a few years back and haven't been able to handle that kind of physical work in heat since then). Anyway, on with the pictures. First we get a picture of the roof as it was at 8:00 this morning. Two layers of old shingles. The top layer was at the end of it's life and there were a couple of small leaks, but nothing I had to worry much about. To the left of the chimney is the old antenna for the house. That's gone now, which should clean up the look of the roof a little. I was tempted to keep it to get high-def local TV, but I don't have a high-def TV. It's garbage now.




I was concerned with what kind of condition the decking would be in. The home inspector said that the inside of the roof looked like it was in great condition, but you never know until you get everything removed. An hour or so into the tear-off, we found the decking to be in as good of shape as I had hoped. Nothing other than a bunch of loose nails to pound down. This is the front, so I haven't gotten to the back side where the chimney is, which I know had a small leak. The back also has the vents which may need some attention. These guys have done a number of roofs and said this is in much better condition than the typical roof they see.




By about 2:00, most of the front exposure is removed, with just the edge around the gutter to be finished. We also took delivery on the shingles, felt, starter strips, and ice & water barrier. $50 for delivery via forklift to the roof. A boom delivery would have been a little easier, but we only had to walk about 15' max with the shingles to get them off the forklift to where we stacked them on the roof. Not bad - I saved around $50 this way. After the guys got back around 6:00, we finished the front and right side exposure and got the ice & water barrier down along with about half of the felt. Tomorrow morning we'll finish the felt on the two exposures and get those exposures shingled. There is a chance of rain tomorrow afternoon, so this will limit how much of the roof I have to worry about. Also tomorrow comes more hard labor. You can see in this last picture that I've got a trailer parked in front of the door. We're loading shingles into the trailer for me to take to the dump. If I were rolling in dough, I'd have rented a dumpster. I still might - hauling and unloading the old shingles by hand SUCKS.

Roofing, Part Deux

In part one, we learned that our hero (me) was getting ready to re-roof his house. Well, that original plan was pushed back a week and we're now going to start the fun this coming Wednesday. Good timing, as things turned out, since this past Wednesday (which was the original start date) was the first day in a month which we saw rain. Today I went and got the material ordered and scheduled for delivery Wednesday afternoon. My original quote from Menards for $50 delivery plus $.75 per bundle for rooftop delivery-by-boom is now a no-go. I thought I had a great deal with that, but it actually got better. Now the $50 delivery includes a forklift instead of the boom to lift the pallet to the roof where I unload it. Either way I had to unload the material, now I just have to walk a few feet per bundle. I can live with that! I had also expected to use my Home Depot pocket-peeler to save 10% per bundle on the shingles, but they're on sale at a price which saves me $.50/bundle off of the price I expected to pay, which almost pays for the delivery charge! Yay for me! Menards must be having a sale on roofing, because only the felt and shingle starter strips weren't on sale. Material cost: $1240.50 with tax and shipping. I expect to have to purchase some additional misc material like flashing for the chimney, but hopefully I'll find no surprises as the old roof is removed and the decking is exposed for the first time in 45 years. Considering the good luck I've had with the material costs, I'm probably screwed.

People Still Buy Wood Paneling?

So I'm going through the local Menard's, minding my own business, getting prices on shingles and roofing. Heading past the checkout lines, I made room for a guy carrying what I thought was a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. Figuring it was heavy, I gave him the right-of-way. After he passed, I looked back and saw that it wasn't plywood, but two sheets of paneling, and I was looking at the back of it. This wasn't just your everyday run of the mill paneling though. This guy was taking the Express Train to hell by buying fake brick paneling. Yes, paneling made to look like bricks. Gray bricks. Ugly gray bricks. 64 square feet of ass-ugly fake gray brick paneling. What could possibly be so hideous as to look BETTER by putting this crap over it? The guy wasn't old enough to have that as an alibi. I was tempted to grab a hammer and put him out of his misery. It's all downhill from here for him, his mind is gone.

Our Water Sucks, Part XIIV

Anybody who's bored enough to have read most of this blog knows that I've been fighting excess iron in our water system since we moved in. I like to think I'm winning, but there are days I'm not so sure. I've installed a whole-house filter to catch the iron & rust particles before they clog the water softener, I've found some great (and many not-so-great) cleaning products, and learned more than I ever wanted to know about rust in wells. What still surprises me is how fast (and sneaky) rust can be. This is a typical work shirt for me. I wore it about a week ago and threw it in the wash a few days later. It was washed and dried, and then hung up. I noticed that it was looking a little dingy, but when I looked more closely, I found that there was some pretty large rust-staining on the back. Luckily I found it before wearing the shirt again - it was on the back, so I probably wouldn't have noticed until my co-workers pointed it out.




Again with my blowing kisses and smoochy-talk about Iron Out. I ran a small load of whites with Iron Out instead of detergent, and let the whites soak for about 10 minutes. Then I drained the water and ran the wash with regular detergent, resulting in a much more presentable shirt. Perfect? No, but the shirt is a few years old and I don't expect miracles. I'm going to do a little experimenting to see if I can just throw in a little Iron Out with the soap and get the same results. If so, I'll just make sure to do that when I wash lighter color clothes.

Pimp my Toyshelf

Or, as my son call it, his "Flaming Green Toyshelf of Death". My father-in-law made this for him a few years back and I finally got around to painting it. As you can see, I watch too many car shows. Chip Foose makes painting flames so easy, I had to try it. For a first effort, it wasn't bad. Two-tone green, with blue pinstriped flames.