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The shingles showed up around 7:40a and I got to sign a waiver should that vehicle damage anything on my property. I watched intently – nothing bad happened, only good.

While the supplies were still being unloaded, a few of the guys placed tarps around the base of the home and cleared any items that could be damaged – bird feeders, grill, water hoses, etc.

Next they headed to the roof to start taking off the attic vents and shingles. Pretty soon, the entire roof was busy with the bam, bam, bam and scrape, scrape, scrape of all the work. The sound isn’t as loud as when the termite insecticide was drilled into the slab, but it is more even – never stopping.

I got quotes from a few different places, but ended up going with the guy who has done the most homes in the neighborhood, had the lowest quote and was using the highest quality roof materials. I spoke with the neighbors and they are all still pleased with his work even a few years later. The flashing on the home next door is beautiful. It is much better than the work from the builder.

It is barely after 8am and I hear them just above me with less than 5 ft of shingles left to remove. Time to shower and to see which plywood decking was rotted from leaks that I didn’t know about.

8:30a

The plywood with the worst leak that I knew about doesn’t appear rotted from the ground. I did see where a small silver dollar sized piece drywall on the ceiling in the upstairs bathroom has flaked off in the last 24 hours – it definitely was fine yesterday morning. It was where the drywall was nailed to a joist in the attic. All the vibrations dislodged it.

About 75% of the roof has been removed down to the plywood.

9am

So almost all the shingles are gone and the places with leaks are very clear. It looks like 6-10 pieces of plywood need to be replaced. They only brought 4 big ones with them. The place where I knew about a leak wasn’t the worst place. There are other places where big holes were made during the shingle removal because it was so rotted. Not good. A few places where higher gutters drain to lower roofing also needs to be redecked. The leader explained it was due to the direction of the downspouts. They were set to flow away from the house, but perpendicular to the shingles. Lots of water was coming in sideways. By simply changing the direction of the flow to match the shingles, he says it won’t be an issue again. I do worry about how close the outlet is to the house siding and how much water will splash on it causing rotting there instead. He angled them slightly away from the house, but still downwards. Further, they drilled a hole and put a screw into the downspout so it isn’t coming off or turning in the future.

Another issue discovered. My outside electrical outlet isn’t working. On the inside wall, exactly where the outside plug fits is an outlet that works perfectly. Different circuit, I guess. Perhaps there’s a light switch that controls it, but I’ve never found it.

As Jose is explaining some of the issues with the previous roof, he also explains why air-powered nailers or staples aren’t the best way to install shingles. There’s no feel for how far down the nails are going, unlike with a hammer. Sometimes the nails don’t go in straight and sometimes they tear the paper/felt underneath too. A little research – It is true My roof will be 100% hand nailed. Sweet!

30 Year Shingles – Sure

Last week, I selected some 30 year shingles, the color, and a roof ridge for better ventilation. The guys are replacing any plywood that needs it, replacing flashing, boots on pipes and other things sticking up, and fixing fascia as they find issues. This is included in the price, no per-piece charge like some of the other contractors. I saw 4 prepainted fascia boards early this morning get unloaded and some metal to go over the edge. I hope it is enough. There are more surprises and extra holes from work performed when the home was build. It appears they nailed supports into the roof to help put the siding on. This is a Centex home, for anyone who cares. I think it was the 2nd home built in the neighborhood.

3pm

It was estimated the work would last until about 4p, but to my untrained eye, it looks like there is 3 more hours to complete the main parts of the roof. There’s a small strip left over the garage that is completely untouched. It is a 1’ by 30’ section about 8 ft off the ground. Easy for 1 guy to complete. They’ve been working all day, except during lunch. Time for another round of photos.

5pm

They are going to be working later than expected. There’s probably a good 90 minutes of work left + cleanup. Most of the cleanup has already happened since they used tarps to capture the debris. Smart. The neighborhood weather station says it is 80.6 deg out. Warm, but not hot.

7p

I would have thought they’d be done and gone by this point. That beautiful flashing work I mentioned about the house next door? Well, they’re doing the same work on mine. There is two layers of flashing and some water redirection pieces too. The leak into the half bath on the first floor should be completely fixed.

Most of the crew is working clean up. There are small pieces left after the big sweep and some black splatter on my and my neighbor’s home. I start to clean it from the siding and the guys take over. They also have a magnetic sweeper to locate any fallen nails. I’ve seen one guy use it all the way around the house. Then another and another. You can hear it click as another metal piece is grabbed. After all that, Jose uses it 4+ more times in certain areas of the yard and it still picks up some nails.

Leaf blowers are out and they are experts. The truck and trailer is pulled forward into the street and they’ve finally finished. The house, yard and driveway look better than when they arrived. I’ve pre-written the check, but there were some extra plywood sheets – $90, which is fine. I hand over $!00 cash for the extra stuff and don’t expect any change. These guys did very nice work and until the last 30 minutes, all of them worked all day. 10 guys worked 4 hours longer than was expected and there wasn’t a single complaint, at least that I understood.

I had planned to install some foam gutter inserts to prevent the gutters getting clogged in the future. Jose asked about them and said to just give him a call and he’d install them for me. There’s just 2 places where I’m afraid to attempt, but the rest of the gutters are easy for me to install or clean. The local Ace Hardware sells what I need by the box. With all the pine trees removed, I don’t expect to clean the gutters nearly as often anymore.

We do a walk around and Jose explains the non-standard work. He actually replaced some rotted trim on the chimney as well as all the chimney flashing. He pointed out how the builder did a poor job with some of the rafters by not extending them as far as they should have in a few places so the fascia could be properly connected. The house wasn’t built right were the words he used. He said they extended the rafters to address the issue. He also said that the fascia boards were not rotted through and didn’t need to be replaced. Finally, they fixed the back gutter so the water will always flow into it with both shingles and a small metal flashing connected to the plywood, but reaching into the gutter. No more water will touch the fascia board there. They raised one end of the gutter so water will flow towards the downspout.

Future Work

So as they find issues that aren’t part of the roofing, I am making a list for the next few weeks to get handled.

• Electrician to fix non-working electrical outlets in the sun room, dining room and outside.
• Carpenter to fix -fascia and- soffit issues. 2nd story, so too dangerous for me.
• Carpenter to replace and paint lowest siding boards around the home that is showing age.
• Me to deal with inside ceiling patches.
• Exterior painting team to pressure wash the house, fill any voids with putty and repaint. There appears to be some rotted wood around the fireplace that wasn’t replaced.

And so ends the new roof day. I find myself looking forward to rain and being able to sleep soundly through the night without worry of water damage. Cost: Priceless.