The Roof

5/16/2005-11/17/2005

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5/16/2005     We decided to have the pro's do the roof because Chuck doesn't enjoy falling 40 feet and Chuck is getting too old.
    Chuck called 9 contractors this morning.  So far, one has shown up to write up an estimate.
5/26/2005      As of today we have had four roofers look at the place.  None of them agree on anything other than the fact that it will cost us about $12,000 to get a roof on the place.
     My favorite contractor to date has to be this woman who called up and said, "Are you taking bids on the job because we don't do jobs where there's competition.  We're artists, not just common roofers.  We cost a lot more."
     Right now it's down to three contractors. 
     The first is a really efficient guy who seemed to know his stuff inside out and we liked his no-nonsense style. 
     The second is this old guy who'd been doing it for 30 years and insisted that the first guy didn't know his butt from a hole in the ground.  He seemed to really know roofing but we don't have his estimate as of yet.
     The third guy is a born-again Christian who has been at it a long time.  We talked about roofing for 20 minutes and about salvation for an hour.  I'm extremely wary of dealing with people who tend to drift away from business discussions so easily, but I liked the guy so I'm giving him a fair shot.
6/10/2005      As of this morning we still haven't yet received all of our bids.  The ones we have received range in prices between $10,000 and $14,000.
10/28/2005   We have now decided that I am not too old after all and I will be doing all the roof work.  The decision was made after we purchased scaffolding and saw that it would be fairly simple work and really not all that dangerous.  The fact that this will be saving us ten grand helped with the decision, too.
     At this point in time work has officially begun.  The job has been reviewed and the scaffolding erected.  Some of the dead wood has been taken down and a bit of the new wood is in place.  If the weather holds up we'll have half of the new roofing done by next Friday, or perhaps sooner.
10/30/2005     I've decided to have a kid from up the street come down and help me out with a few things I can never find the time to do, and today will be his first day if he shows up.  Seth is a genuinely nice kid.  He's 15 and stands 6'5" tall weighing 330 lbs..  Without any doubt, he has the nicest manners I've ever heard from a kid.
     My plan is to have him scrape all of the old shingles off the roof and lower them down in a bucket.  They disintegrate on contact so it should be relatively simple work.  He's also good at keeping busy when I have no work for him and loves pruning back the trees that have overgrown from the woods into the yard.  It's nice now having so much light coming in.
10/31/2005      The edge is really coming along at this point.  The framing is just about done on the left side and the roof work will be beginning today if everything goes right.  I'd be up there already but it took forever to crank the carriage bolts into the scabbed-in boards.  I told Beth about it and she bought me a heavy duty corded driver to speed things up in the future.  I was going to continue doing it manually in order to keep costs down but I wasn't about to turn down another good power tool.  Anyway, it will speed each carriage bolt's insertion time from about 8 minutes down to about 20 seconds and there are many, many to still be installed.
11/1/2005      My back.  My aching back.  Someone, please kill me.
11/2/2005     The weather said it would be clear for five days.  It lied.  I stepped outside to hear the pitter patter of rain on the tin roof over the kitchen and panicked.  All of my power tools were on the roof and totally exposed.  Lantern in teeth, I raced up the wet ladder and threw a tarp over the entire area.  Happy ending.  Lesson learned.
11/6/2005      Half of the roof is officially repaired.  Yahoo!
     The second half may prove to be a little tricky.  The house is so close to the one next-door that I'm not sure if I can erect the scaffolding there.
11/12/2005      Two days and the other side is repaired and papered.  It's supposed to rain on Monday-Wednesday so at least this much is done, and barring heavy wind damage (not in the forecast) it should be okay.  The next clear day is supposed to be Thursday.  Today is Saturday.  If I'm lucky, I'll have it finished by tomorrow.
11/14/2005      The rains should hold off until this evening so I'll try my best to complete the roof today.  Lots to do so it may not happen.  We'll see.
     (10:30pm) It's raining.  I got as far as the peak and ran out of light, at least by my apparently weak standards.  See, there's this other guy across the ravine who is also putting on a new roof.  I can hear him hammering away all day long and I'm fairly certain that he's trying to somehow race me.  I'll finish laying a shingle with my usual three nails, each getting two taps and then a strike.  Then I'll hear *^&% Woody the Woodpecker over there hammering away like his life depended on it.  It's as though the jerk was trying to out-do me.  I'll bet he's using two hammers and just hitting a board when he pulls that crap.
     Anyway, I got as far as the peak when it got dark and I called it quits.  I spent about ten minutes cleaning up and draping a tarp across the peak.  Then I threw some shingles on it to hold it down and by that time it was really dark.  I slowly went down the ladder feeling my way like a blind man.  The side yard was pitch black and the ground, covered with old shingles with nails sticking out everywhere, slowed me even more.  I finally get to the back door and whattaya know? Gene Kruppa starts up on yet another drum solo in the dark.
     I actually hope rain gets in his house tonight.  I know that's bad but he really bugged the hell out of me all day, the lousy show off.
11/16/2005     Cold, wet and rainy day today.  Started repainting the dining room instead of working on the roof.
11/17/2005      The storms brought frigid weather to the region.  It's a nice sunny day today, but it's only 40 degrees with no warmer weather looming on the horizon.  It's workable roofing weather but I wish it was about ten degrees warmer.