A lot of my summer seems to have been spent on roofs. I remember one 90 degree day a tenant asking me how it was going and my reply was it is hot. They said yea but you can get a good tan up there. Hey I am old I don't care about a tan, I realized years back looking handsome was a lost cause, I just want air conditioning.
Yesterday I finished our last roof for the year.And when I say I finished I mean "I" finished. Matthew went off to Seminary and Micah has been busy the last 2 weeks, seems to think he has a full time job he needs to show up at. Micah and Matthew did a roof this size one Saturday morning and we were home early for lunch. I think we woke a lot of tenants up on Saturday mornings a lot earlier than they had planned. Someone on your roof with a nail gun early morning has to be an eye opening experience. It took me 2 and 1/2 days to do this one. I like to think I am more precise instead of slow. The boys might disagree with that but what do they know, they are still in their early 20s. I knew it was time to end when 2 weeks ago Micah said, "I sure hope we do not have as many roofs to do next year." This from the guy that told me earlier this summer he would rather roof than put on siding. I told him if you stop buying houses we will not have to roof so many houses. (he is still looking).
So I am on this side on Wednesday and think I feel my foot starting to slip just a bit. Natural reaction was to put down a hand to make sure I was steady. Problem was that was the hand I had the nail gun in, problem was I had my finger on the trigger. Now the problem was I had this neat line of nails running down the roof poking out of those new shingles I had just put on. Yea great fun to tear those back off and redo. I really need to take my finger off that trigger, I am just thankful that line of nails was not in my leg.
This is about roof 14 for the year, we got a total of 18 finished, I think this is both my favorite way to roof and the boy's favorite way to roof. Me not on the roof. Do you see a ladder? Me neither, wonder where they put the ladder when I was not looking so I couldn't get on the roof.
This was one of the more memorable ones. We had finished another roof early on a Saturday afternoon. I said to Micah lets start on the next house and see if we can get a few shingles on. Micah set up the ladder and told me the roof was missing some shingles. I said "yea, I know there were a few blown off and I patched it a couple of weeks ago so it would hold water until we got to it." Micah replied "No dad there are shingles gone." I am thinking what is his problem I patched it up and put on some tar for good measure, we will get back to the tar in a minute. Micah wanted me to get up on the ladder and take a look. I did and said "I patched it right there what are you talking about." Look up to your right dad." Oh boy, about a 3 foot by 4 foot section of shingles was completely gone must have blown off in a wind storm we had that week. I was looking at bare sheeting. Our easy short afternoon turned into a mad rush to get the roof buttoned down and covered before Sunday. It was still April and it actually rained back then and there was rain in the forecast. As we worked on the roof the tar I had put on a couple of weeks earlier got on everything. Micah kept grumbling under his breath and sometimes quite audibly about ignorant people putting tar on roofs. I am sure he in no way was referring to me.
As you can see there was no tear off on this roof. Just a shingle over. When we started doing this 2 years back the boys were adamant that the roofs needed to be torn down to the sheeting before we put on any shingles. I told them they could do a tear off, no problem, but I was not helping. Shingle over works just fine once, that is why we never buy a house with more than one layer of shingles. They patiently explained to me how much harder the tear off would be with a double layer next time the houses need to be shingled. I again stated they could tear off any shingles they wanted, but I was not concerned about the next time the roof needed shingling. I was 57 at the time and 20 years from then I would be 77 and I would not be shingling anyway. Your problem then boys. Funny thing, I never saw them tear a single shingle off, boy are they going to have a lot of work in 20 years.
