Blast from the Past #6

Well, since one 'Blast from the Past' post got done today I might as well do another one.

This time I'll do the roof. This was the first major thing we did to the house itself that was noticeable. We had a steady stream of looky-lous drive by the entire time.

The roof's shingles were replaced in early Spring of 2005.

Here all the shingles on the porch rook are gone and the new tar-paper has been laid. The roofers have also stated to remove shingles from the main roof.

This was the end of day 1.

I was trying to get a better picture of the main roof. I don't think it came out too well.




Day 2.

All the shingles are off of the south half of the roof and the original shake shingles have been exposed.

We had the option to replace these and put down a new deck, but the shake shingles were still in great shape and they are better, from an insulation view point, than a new deck.

However...at one point the roofers did start removing the shakes. They had removed an entire section from the north east side before the foreman caught it. They replaced them.

Now, you might be wondering why the foreman wasn't there when it happened. Simple - he was at our little Victorian cottage supervising that crew as well. I'll talk about that later.

Just another view of the same spot.

On day 3 they started to do the shingles on the north side.



This was at lunch time on the 3rd day.









There are just a small amount of shingles left on the west side and a tiny amount on the north east side.



By the beginning of the 4th day they had reached this point.


















This is how far they had gotten on the 4th day.

As you can see there is just a little lift on the west facing dormer and, IIRC, about half the wraparound porch was left.

On the fifth day they completed the house and completed the garage.






Okay, now let's get back to the our little Victorian cottage as I pull out my soap box.

The roof on the little house was started the same day as the big house. The roof on the little house was smaller than the big one, but the roof was a bit more complicated.

The work crew on the big house was composed of nothing but Hispanic guys. I really have no problem with this, but I did wonder if they were all 'legal' even though the company assured us all their workers were 'legal'. Also, the leader of the crew was the only one who could speak English enough that we could understand each other.

The crew on the little house were all white.

Now keep all of this in mind.

During the entire time the crew was working on the big house they were humping their rumbs and constantly busy. Due to the way the house sits, as well as the trees around it, they were not able to use a shingle lift to get the bundles up there. They had to move each shingle bundle up by hand.

They were also VERY polite and courteous. At the end of the day they made sure the yard around the house was cleaned up and they also made sure all the plants around the house were not harmed - no small feat when roofing. They bent over backwards to be perfect workers!!!

However, over at the little house the entire white crew loafed around and never seemed to get anything done. Every time I drove by they were just sitting there like a bunch of monkeys in a tree!! We also had damage to several plants around the house. On top of this the foreman was always having to go on them to make sure they were working. As for being polite and courteous...well, let's just say they looked like the rejects from the local prison. I would NOT have let SWMBO go over there by herself.

It really said something in that during two of the 5 days the big house was getting worked on the foreman didn't even bother to come by. Get this, the little house took three days longer to finish!

Now - don't get me wrong, I'm not praising illegal emigrant workers (especially since we were told they were legal) but I will give the Hispanic guys credit, they worked their butts off!

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~