Gettin my roof on (well off and then on)

Spent this last weekend plus the last couple days re-roofing a section of our house. I had originally intended to get the south side of the house done in a weekend, but evidently the weather and my estimation were not very good. So I am here on Tuesday with only one small section of the roof finished; probably only 20% of what I wanted to get done, but 70% of what needed to get done before next week.

My Dad has been a great help but we are both not very cut out for roofing; bad backs and sore muscles down to the bones to prove it. It has been great that he is willing to take time away from his own home projects to help me with this; he is redoing the master bath at his house.

Anywho... this is how it seems to have gone.

Friday afternoon: Got started on tearing the old roof off on the southeast side of the house and evaluating what sheeting needed to be replaced; that side of the house was really bad and bounced when you walked on it. We replaced a couple pieces that were really bad and started cleaning up the roof deck. It got dark after only about 3 hours up there and started raining; we got tarps up just in time to catch the most of it.

Saturday: quickly realized after replacing the first couple sheets that most of the sheeting needed to be replaced since walking on it you thought you would go through if you didn't find the rafters. That took the rest of the day. It misted all morning and finally opened up in the early afternoon for about an hour. We got back to work and, while replacing the sheeting at the very end at the ridge, decided to square off the end of the gable; it was pointed, and actually still is on the north side.

Aimee and Jim, a friend who I asked at the last minute if he could help, took off part of the valley to the next part of the roof during the morning before Aimee went to a baby shower lunch with Jim's wife and other friends; so I lost Jim's help for the rest of the day so he could watch his daughter while Cara was away.

Tarped everything up for the night and hoped it all stayed put.

Sunday: We finally got the finishing touches on the gable end and the replaced sheeting, including adding insulation to the outside 3 feet of the outside wall in the attic where there wasn't any. We were then finally able to put felt down and start shingling the roof. Oh and we got the ice and water shield membrane in the valley to the next roof section. I got about 6 feet from the gutters done before darkness required us to call it a night at like 6:30, when the streetlight was the only light and we just couldn't see anything anymore.

Putting together and figuring out how to modify the roof above the gable ate up a lot of time. Replacing almost all of the sheeting ate up all of our energy. Dad and I were both exhausted and were figuring there was no way we would be able, even if we were willing, to work the next day.

Monday: The weather was perfect with little precipitation, so we got a lot more shingles up on the roof, up to about 3 feet from the peak at all but 4 feet away from the valley, which was more like 8 feet away from the peak. There was more intricate work with figuring out how to do a lapped valley and shingle around our new square gable, so it didn't go as fast as I thought it would, but progress none the less.

Tuesday (today): Woke up several times during the night to find it was raining hard and checked the tarps. Up to 6 am they were fine, but when we went out at 8:30 to start, the tarp at the top of the valley had blown up over the front of the house, but the tar paper and shingles seemed to be fine; although a bit wet and the tar paper a little saggy.

We ended up finishing the southeast roof, except for the hip at the end which I just realized we didn't do. So no tarping there tonight. Today included cutting holes for and installing vents and a solar powered roof fan, figuring out what to do at the peak to tie into the old roofing on the front of the house, and putting on the ridge shingles.

It all went pretty well, but was kinda tedious with all the cutting around the vents and trimming shingles down to fit at the ridge. I ended up installing the ridge vents in a steady misting rain after dark, with a led headlamp on while my Dad cleaned up the tools and got them inside out of the wet.

Overall: I have to say, even though I have done roofing before, I am glad we are doing the back of the house first so when I get to the front I have the specifics figured out and it will look and hopefully workout a little better than the back did.

I only have one more south facing roof I have to do before Wednesday next week when I have Solar Electric panels being installed. I really doubt we will get that done in one day, but tear out starts as soon as I can get out of meetings for the day since it is the last dry(ish) day that is forecast for the next week.

So, anyone reading this that is able to come help out for the day tomorrow, it would be very greatly appreciated.

Fourth of July

We had a fun fourth. We spent the day outside; Aimee washed the cars and I worked on trying to clean out the sprinkler lines that got some kind of debris in them. Sam had fun getting wet with the hose and trying to help me. It was a mildly hot day so the mist from Aimee spraying the cars actually felt kinda good.

We did some fireworks with Sam at 7 before he went to bed, then got him up at 10 and did some more. He was a little disoriented when we got him up for the later ones, but soon got pretty excited to see all the fireworks in the relative dark, in the street outside out house. We had bought a package of fireworks from Costco with a variety of sizes of fountains. We did a lot of the smaller ones before he went to bed and all the rest, which included the biggest fountains at night.



Here are the empties and the final pics from the night before we went inside:

It was a lot of fun and I am glad we got him up for the nighttime show. He really seemed to like it despite signing "loud" repeatedly for the "illegal" fireworks that the people at the end of the street were firing off. We will definitely be doing this in the future, especially since Sam went down to sleep afterword without much of a problem. We did have to help him calm down a little from the excitement but it didn't take long and was expected, so easily managed.

Here are some pics of the "good", yet illegal, fireworks that were being shot off down the street from us.

Rainy day tools

Aimee came in to give me my 18V Ryobi drill this morning while I was working in the office. She had found it in the rain out on the hot tub where I had left it when I unscrewed the last bit of deck boards on Monday night. It had been out in the rain for 2 days. I was not happy.

I let if dry out and tried it, and it works! yeah, it didn't get fried. To see if there was any noticeable damage inside the housing, I took it apart and found that there was years of dust and grime buildup in there. Yuk. Should have taken a picture, oh well!!

I proceeded to clean it all out and now I have a cleaner drill to work with. It should stay cooler now that the air ports are not so clogged.