Up on the housetop

It can be a little disconcerting to have roofers working on your house. The first evening (they worked until sundown) they were stripping off the old shingles and replacing damaged decking. We had a fair bit of water damage, which is what I suspected and feared, and why I didn’t put it off another year. So we spent the evening trying to have a normal life while men walked around on our roof intermittently dropping bowling balls and anvils. It sounded as though one of them could come plunging through the ceiling at any moment.

The second evening wasn’t so bad. They were putting on the new shingles, which mostly involved pneumatic nail guns firing off six-shot bursts every half a minute or so. Fortunately they knocked off not long after the kids went to bed. I’m sure my boys found it difficult to sleep with a guy nailing shingles down just outside their windows.

They finished up today. There are a few lingering signs of their presence, but mostly they cleaned up fairly well. They’re also supposed to be coming to replace our rain gutters soon, so I’ll reserve final judgment until then. But so far, other than the salesman and I playing phone tag frequently, it was a fairly good experience. The house looks fairly good with it’s “new do”. And I’ll hopefully sleep a little better knowing that our roof shouldn’t be on the verge of blowing away next time we get canyon winds. And if it does, it’ll be someone else’s dime for the repairs.

I’m especially curious to see if I notice a difference in my cooling bills this summer. Everyone I’ve had give us a bid felt that our main roof didn’t have adequate ventilation (ie. NO roof vents). What they each wanted to do about it varied, but they all agreed on that. Well, now we have roof vents. We’ll see if it accomplishes what they claim it should. I certainly wouldn’t mind.

Technically, I should be close to retirement before I’ll have to have the roof redone again. That I also certainly wouldn’t mind.