Dec 20 2010

Roofing Day 19

It is now in December 20th, and I am in the 19th day of the roofing  job from hell.  This whole project has turned out to be a lot more than I expected, but it was something which absolutely needed me to do it.  I probably saved $10-20,000 by doing it myself, but it has it has taken a toll on me.   Unexpected freezing weather from an arctic front has frozen the east coast and I have been freezing my ass off.    The average temp in December here in Charleston is normally 65F.  Most morning is it has been in the 20’s with highs in the low 40’s if we are lucky.  We are having historic temperatures here with record breaking cold weather everywhere.   This has been a really crazy month weather wise. 

I’ll tell you what though, there is no greater motivator to getting up early in the morning no matter how you feel or how cold it is and work your ass off than having a completely naked roof and the threat of rain.  Speaking of which an unexpected rain came through (the weatherman prediction cant be trusted) and I now have rain damage in the ceilings in every room in the house (except for my study).  I had buckets everywhere to catch the drips.    After I cleaned up the mess I just thought, I built the house so there is NOTHING mother nature can throw my way that I can’t repair as good as (or better) than when I built it the first time.

Needless to say, after getting up at 6 am, starting work by 7:30 and busting butt until the sun goes down, then hitting Lowes or Home Depot to get more stuff for the next day, I have been totally exhausted every night and had no energy to write in the blog.  I didnt clean house for 2 1/2 weeks, piled washed clothes in the corner, and left piles of dirty clothes wherever I took them off.   I was just too tired to even care how I looked, if I ate, or how the house looked.  With my camera crunched up I have rely on my cell phone camera so I havent been able to document the work.   BTW, I just ordered a new 12 mp Casio camera from  from Amazon and cant wait to get it. 

I feel like I am now on the closing end of this project, things are looking up, and have the energy to write in my blog.  I’ll try do do a quick recap to catch you up.

 Day 6

After completing the stripping of the shingles and re-pitching the back roof of the house, it was on to the front side.  I found massive wood rot on the front porch.  I ended up just replacing the header beam of the porch and a number of roof boards.  Tony stopped by for a few hours to help me replace the beam.  He left to go home to bed as he was really sick.

 Day 7

Work was started on the re-pitching of the front roof.  I wanted to bring the top of the porch roof to the same height as the peak of the front bedroom.  It has always looked out of balance to me the way it was originally built.

The roof  rafters are going up.

Day 8

I removed part of the siding of the house to build a sofit on to the new addition.  The rafters are set in place and it is time to start sheeting the roof. 

Day 11

 This was a really bad day for me.  The rains came a day early than I planned for and there was nothing I could do about the fact that 1/2 of my roof had no protection on it at all.    Early that morning I bought some traps to cover the remaining roof up but it was too late for my ceilings.

 The house looks like a smurf house now.

The re-pitching on the back of the house so I can extend the structure of the the screened in porch over my exercise pool.  I’ll have to raise the brickwork to the new sofit in a few weeks.

Water coming out the ceiling vents, lights, smoke detectors.  What a mess.

My huge construction dumpster is nearly filled.  I am saving some room for the last and final roof the screened in room which I will strip and re-shingle last.

 

I have put all the extra wood trash on my trailer.  I plan to have a “burning up the house” part when this project is done.  I’ll invite my friends, get some beer and pizza and make a big bonfire in my back yard.  I plan to dig a big hole with the dozer, burn the wood and leaves in it and cover up the leftovers (nails) with dirt as I level out the land.

 

Day 12

Tony is back on the job feeling a bit better.  Now that that front roof has been re-pitched, we will be working on the sofits and fasha boards.

Day 13

The front front sofits are done.  This looks much better than what I had before.

Day 18

We FINALLY started shingling yesterday.  What a pleasure it was to be out of the really hard back breaking work and seeing something really getting done.   I think the sofits came our really nice and the shingles (called Hickory Red) gives a really nice look to the house.   Sort of a wood shake sort of look which really complements the brick.

Day 17  (Saturday)

It rained all day so I took a much needed day off.  I actually felt almost human again.    We had over 1/2″ rain, which allowed me to discover new leaks in my temporary roof covering visa-be my ceilings.  This time it was in my upstairs bedroom.  I covered the area with more tar paper and put out the buckets, drilled more holes in the ceiling to catch the liquid gold dripping down.    I cant wait for this shit to be over.

Day 18 Yesterday (Sunday)

I started work on the back of the house.  Putting down straight runs of shingles is very quick, but cutting around roof opening takes a bunch of time.  I am glad Tony took Sunday off to get ready for his trip to Los Angles, as he would have been frustrated about the time it took me to carefully cut the shingles and seal the various roof flashing’s.

 

Day 19 (Today)

Tony and I finished off the back of the house.  Moved the shingles off the peak and staged them for the replacement of the screened in porch. It look terrific now.  I also installed the flashing for my solar light tubes (two of them) which run down into the kitchen.  I cant wait to see how well they work.

We also completed the back side (1 of 4) of the upper roof. 

Well this catches you up to the present stage I am at.  Whats left? 

The remaining 3 sides of the upper roof
Build a cricket for the chimney
Installing the ridge vents and caps
Shingling the two storage building
Removing the shingles and shingling the screened in porch
Reinstall the vinyl siding.

I hope to have everything done by this weekend (4 days).    This is the LAST freaking time I will ever shingle a roof again.  Kind of a shame as I did a lot of research to do the best job possible and know a lot about shingling now.  With 30-35 year shingles I figure the next time this roof will to be done, I will be in a nursing home wearing a diaper and drooling on myself.    I would only help Tony if he asked, but for anyone else, you couldnt pay me enough money in the world to do this again.  Go higher a contractor.

Off to bed.  I have a 6 am wake up call for work.  It is going to be 31f tomorrow morning.  It will be so nice to not have to dress up with 2 socks, 3 layers on my legs, 5-6 layers on my upper body, gloves, hat, ear muffs just to go to work outside.    What fun…..