A Sunny day, not too hot. The plywood was already here. They’d dropped it off on Friday. Dropped isn’t exactly the right word for it. With the help of a truck-mounted crane, they lifted a large pile of plywood off the truck and up onto my roof. From inside the house, the sound of it was frightening. From outside, it was also a bit scary.
Construction is fascinating, though. Especially close up.
All his life, my dad built houses. I guess I took for granted all the skill and hard work his job required. Now I’m more appreciative.
The three roofers showed up at 8am on Monday morning. Like most roofers these days, they were Hispanic, strong men who didn’t need to be told what to do. They took an hour off for lunch each day and worked until almost 6pm. They finished the job in three-and-a-half days.
Mostly, they were pretty quiet. Until the third day. I was inside when every so often I’d hear something from one of them. I suppose he was joking around, but when you have men two stories up on the roof, the first thing that comes to mind was that someone was falling. (No one did.)
Have I made this whole thing sound like a totally delightful experience? Did I neglect to mention the noise?
The first day was the worst—scraping off the old shakes, throwing them down into the trailer, and especially moving the plywood. There’s no way to take a piece of plywood off a stack and put it someplace else without a big bang.
I found some bright pink earplugs. Pretty, and pretty useless. Cotton balls were better, when they didn’t fall out.
The last step was nailing down the new shingles. That wasn’t too bad—just tap, tap, tap.
Do you like to watch construction?
Great you are getting a new roof but sorry to hear about the noise. It sounds loud. Probably louder than I can imagine. Agree construction is fascinating. One day nothing is there or torn apart. Then another day everything is built and fixed like nothing happened. I don’t mind watching construction I’m in a building overlooking it, so I don’t hear the noise and not in front of the pollution. It’s tough gig, not only needing physical manpower but also have to make sure you have the right protective gear, and know how to keep safe.
It sounds like you have a good viewpoint for watching construction. One of my daughters is a structural engineer. It’s interesting to hear from her about all the planning a care that goes into designing and constructing any large building.
We’ve had a few roofs replaced and THE NOISE is what got to me. No way around it, and the workmanship was good, but…
You’re right about the noise: There’s no way around it. That’s the way with some things in life, I guess.
That’s a BIG job with a BIG expense. No, I don’t like watching construction. I feel sorry for the men (and women) who do that hard work, usually in the heat of summer and sometimes in the ice of winter. But I like seeing the results. Hope you’re happy with your new roof and no longer need to plug your ears!
Because my dad built houses–from foundation to roof–all his life, I tend to think of the hard work involved in construction as good honest work. So I’m more likely to admire rather than feel sorry for the workers. Every job has its difficult days. I’m just glad that the roofers who did my roof had perfect days: comfortably warm (about 70 degrees) and no rain. And yes, I’m happy with my new roof.
All the roofs on our street (100 villas) were redone 2 years ago . . . per the “request” of the insurance company.
I am appreciating the work the roofers did as Debby blows around outside like the Big Bad Wolf . . . huffing and puffing and trying to blow our house down. 😀
I’m glad you have a secure roof to keep the Big Bad Wolf out. Keep safe, Nancy.
So glad to see the roofers appear to be using safety ropes. With my fear of heights, watching people on roofs always make me nervous.
I think the safety ropes were only a part-time thing. It must be especially bad for roofers when the roof is wet.
Several decades ago, I had a roof done. I took off shopping for the day. Afterward I kept finding nails in my shrubs!
I haven’t found any nails yet, but I have found a few little paper things that blew away. I was a little worried about something getting around the edges of the skylights.
The noise is insane. I didn’t have my noise canceling earphones when we had our roof redone. Luckily, our house is very small and it didn’t take long. Not more than a day to take off the old roof and a day to put on the new one.
I didn’t think of getting something like noise canceling earphones. That would have been a good idea.
Since I changed from cedar shakes to composite shingles, the process required one extra step, the addition of plywood under the shingles. Something I hadn’t thought of, never having looked to see what was under my shakes. Obviously.
I do like to watch it – especially currently on our house. Those are good pictures
Thank you, Derrick. I also enjoyed watching the construction on your blog.
Wow. What happened to cause your roof to need repair? Was this storm damage? I admire the roofers’ ability to do the work, though the noise was so intrusive.
I don’t like to see construction these days, especially with so many roads under repair and “expect delays” signs popping up everywhere! As for house construction, I’ve never owned a home, so I rarely see it up close. 😊
Just normal wear and tear. I had someone over to clean my gutters, and they told me there were bits of the cedar shakes coming loose and I should change the roof. I suppose I could have waited longer, but roofs should be replaced every so often. This new roof is supposed to last for 40 or 50 years. I think that’s what he said.
My youngest daughter and her husband are engineers. When my grandson was in preschool, he was fascinated by all the road construction equipment and knew what they were all called. Now that he’s in high school, he has other interests.