The Decompression of a Boomer

Our house was built in 1966 with a fabulous cedar shake shingled roof. I loved the roof. But at 50 years old, it was at the end of its life. Over the past 15 years (since we bought the house) we’ve had to make lots of repairs.

David has been up on the roof about every summer dealing with leaks.

We’ve hired roofers to make repairs, we’ve oiled the roof. Shingles blow off, exposing the felt under the shingles, which practically flakes apart. The shingles themselves, about an inch thick, could probably last another half century:

But the felt under the shingles is shot.

So this summer we replaced the roof. (Ouch!) I so loved the look of our shake roof.

But you can’t buy those shakes anymore. The shakes we could get to replace our roof aren’t nearly the quality they were in 1966. We’ve heard some bad reviews, like they curl after a couple of years and within five years you are already making repairs. So we decided to go with asphalt shingles.

We did lots of research, looked at roofs all over town, and found an asphalt shingle that has a 3-dimensional look: ‘Grand Canyon’ in Black Walnut. The roofing company, Wright Roofing, had us in their queue by early May, and would give us a few days notice that they were coming. I was dreading the call.

The call came Friday, July 24. They would be here the following week. I had this long convoluted nightmare Sunday night that the new roof looked hideous, it completely clashed with our brick and shutters; we’d have to completely change the colors of the house to go with the new roof. Awful.

Tuesday, July 28, about 6:45 AM, we hear voices. I raise up from my sleep and peer out the window. Roofers!

Soon they’re lined up on top of our roof like carpenter ants, ripping off shingles.

They flung the bulk of the shingles into their massive trucks parked alongside the house. Shingles were also flying onto tarps in front of the house.

The crew is back on the house at 6:45 am Wednesday morning.

Needless to say, we’re up too. What are they doing? It sounded like 500-pound boulders with protruding nails being dragged across the roof, right next to our heads.

The foreman said it was the dirtiest roof they had ever done in the 40-plus years they’d been in business.

Huge messes accumulated by the end of the day…

By the end of the second day, the roof was stripped and prepped for the new shingles, with a new layer of plywood over the existing roof.

Thursday morning now – The shingles have arrived!

Each bundle of shingles weighs 60 pounds. They must have unloaded 90 bundles from the conveyer belt along the top of the roof.

Pulling the belt back down now…

Roofers are exhausted!

Soon they get busy. Part of the crew on each section of the house. The pattern is taking shape!

I’m happy to be the observer.

This is how I imagine it feels on the roof!

I’m loving the three dimensional look of our new roof:

Roofers laying shingles on the back side:

Rudy steps in to help

Hammering the last shingle now…

Blowing debris off the finished roof

Final cleanup begins

Rudy dashes in to assist

Rounds up the rest of the crew to pitch in

Boy the roof looks great

Rudy dismisses the crew. Job well done!

A couple of days later, we notice burn spots in the the grass left by sun-baked asphalt shingles…

That jack-o’-lantern face on our front lawn creeps us out when we glance at it from our upstairs bedroom window

But the house looks great.

“The roof’s a keeper!” I allow.

“Well, I should hope so!”

(Yeah, like we could change our minds, rip it back off and start over.)

Tags: cedar shakes, Grand Canyon Asphalt shingles, Wright Roofing

This entry was posted on August 8, 2015 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.