Roofing

If your marriage can survive a roofing project, it can survive anything.

Then again, we haven't had kids yet, so you may have to ask me about that in another ten years.

Our roof was far past due time for replacement & before winter hit, we decided to buckle down & get it done.  We didn't bother getting estimates from contractors because we knew the price would be far outside our budget - we estimated $7,000 - $10,000.  Steve had some knowledge of roofing & we decided with the help of some friends, we'd be able to knock it out ourselves.  By doing so, after rentals (including dumpster) & materials, it cost approximately $3,000.  That, my friends, is far more friendly on the wallet.

When all was said & done, roofing turned out to be a fairly standard home improvement project.  It doesn't require a technical skill, such as electrical, plumbing, etc.  Paired down to the simplest of tasks, it's a matter of stripping the old roof off, laying paper (essentially a vapor barrier), & nailing down the new shingles.  Of course there's always variables that can throw it off - the pitch, size, complexity of eaves/dormers, quality of underlying materials - but for the most part, roofing is straightforward.

I failed to take any pics of the garage being stripped, but on Day 1, Steve stripped the garage.  Day 2, paper was laid & the boom truck delivered shingles.  The plan was to have both the house & garage stripped & papered so the boom truck could deliver shingles directly onto both roofs, but the house was much more difficult than the garage, so shingles were only delivered onto the garage roof (the rest delivered in the yard for the boys to haul up the scaffolding later).

 Steve & our friend Tara waiting for the boom truck.

 Boom truck.  This thing has some reach.

Apparently our house had two layers of shingles & made for very difficult stripping.  Not to mention the underlying wood was NOT plywood, but instead old strip wood from what we guessed was an old barn (it still had faded painted advertisements on it, like you'd see on the side of a barn).  I hate when people take shortcuts when they build/improve a home.  Some day that underlying wood will have to be replaced.  Today was not that day.

The shingles are beginning to pile very, very high.  I made the mistake of putting myself in charge of shingle clean-up because I refused to get on the roof (not unless there was a harness & a helmet involved).  Using our decrepit wheelbarrow (pictured above), I made a LOT of trips to the dumpster parked in our driveway.  I was also in charge of food prep, making sure to have several hearty meals ready for the guys.  They were helping us out of the kindness of their hearts - and maybe an ulterior motive with plans to ask us for help in their home improvement projects in the future - so without payment, the least we could do is feed them.

 Scrap metal from the roof (stuff that gets laid on the edges & the crevices of the roof).

 The only rule for the dumpster was no metal.  Otherwise, not only did we dump old shingles, we also took the opportunity to clean out our garage.  The table below was one such item that had to get tossed.

Look at that fabulous new roof!

Apparently I didn't take any pictures of the completed house roof.  Probably because I wanted nothing more to do with roofing.  Time spent roofing: Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, after work through the next week (sans one day due to poor weather), the following Saturday, & half-day Sunday.  I guesstimate a total of 53 hours went into the roofing.  Not easy, but most certainly rewarding upon completion.

One requirement of the next house we buy: not in need of a new roof.