Shopsmith Forums

Well last week I ordered all the roofing materials and such. It all came on Friday the 7th and we also had a dumpster delivered the same day. I went and rented a ladder hoist and boy am I glad I did. It cost an arm and a leg to rent it but it made short work of getting the 80 lb. bundles of shingles up to the roof. My wife and I got to it on Saturday early and man was it hot for October. The both of us stripped 1,000 sq. ft. of roof that had three layers of shingles on it in about 9 hours. I was not feeling very chipper at the end of the day but we got it done. On Sunday a friend of a friend who used to be a roofer came over and helped me get started putting the new roof on. He was hoping to get about 5-6 squares done on Sunday but it was only him and myself and I was in no shape to lay shingles after stripping the roof the day before. I worked as hard as I possibly could but I was really dragging and running on empty.

Bryan was somewhat disappointed that we didn't get as much done as he had hoped but I told him it was definitely not his fault that I just didn't have any gas left to really put in a 100% effort. So we got about 2-3 squares done but the most important part was getting the valley weaved in. I wasn't really sure how to go about doing that and he did 75% of it and left the rest for me to finish. We quit about 6:00 pm as I just could do any more work and was ready to collapse.

So Monday comes and now it is only my wife and myself. The two coil roofing guns I had borrowed from another friend both croaked on Sunday so i had to go and buy a new one so that both of us had a nail gun to use. I bought a Max Super Roofer based on Bryan's advise and it was really a nice coil roofing nailer. So we got a little late start about 11:15 am. but we worked the whole day until dark and both of us were pretty shot.

We got up bright and early on Tuesday morning and got right to it again although I did have to run and rent a couple of step ladders to setup a short scaffold on our porch roof to reach the second story roof and get the first few courses started. That worked out very well and made it very easy to get on to the roof and move stuff around etc. The biggest problem I had was that because it was only my wife and I doing all of the work I had to do all of the heavy lifting i.e. moving the ladders and 16' OSHA planks and set everything up before we could get to work on each section of the roof. This made for some very sore muscles and seriously sapped my energy level. But I soldiered on as they were calling for rain on Wed. and it was Tuesday and we still had a significant amount of roof to cover.

To shorten the story sorry for the lengthy message we got back to work early Wed. morning and the both of us were able to completely cover the roof before the rains came which was a huge relief for me as I was pretty stressed out on Tuesday. I only have to put the ridge caps on which i will probably do tomorrow as it was too windy today to be screwing around 25+ ft. in the air on a 8/12 pitch roof. We are both pretty pleased with our accomplishment although I would not recommend someone who is 48 yrs. young to attempt this knowing what I know now. It was a much bigger job than i had envisioned, the shingling was the easy part the ripping and moving stuff around part is what really did me in. next year the other half of the roof will get done as well as the garage/mancave which leaks like a sieve. It will be a much easier project as those two roofs are much lower and the garage is a straight forward roof with no valleys or crazy stuff. The other roof has many valleys and ridges plus a chimney to deal with so that will be a little more work but I am confident now that we can get it done without any problem.

Here are a couple of crappy cell phone pics of the roof all done.









Some may notice that there is a vent stack missing in the last pic. I took that out as it was no longer hooked up to anything and was just ugly and taking up space plus just another place for a leak to potentially happen. So we only have the one soil vent stack now. I have to trim the excess shingles on the rake edges and install the ridge caps and it will be completely done. Probably make that happen tomorrow.

In the last pic you can just see the living room which still needs to have it's roof completely replaced but we are holding off on that until the spring as it doesn't leak nearly as bad as the main roof and also not on our heads.........

The pics are fine, so is it the cell phone itself that is crappy?:D

Michael, congratulations on a super job.

pennview wrote:Michael, congratulations on a super job.

Thank you Pennview it is a job that carried with it a high degree of personal satisfaction and accomplishment as well as saving us a huge amount of money regardless of the strenuous work involved. I am super pleased with the outcome.

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Good job well done.

Be glad it was not done in August!:eek:

Took me almost a year, but I had 'structural' damage to 'repair'. Then again I also did not have a 'helper'!;) I also matched the shingles end to end.

Excellant job with great understanding of what was needed. I have found that roof and concrete work requires the hardest and most labor intensive efforts I have experienced in my life. I find these jobs are beyond my ability and capability as I got more mature in life. Also very difficult to accomplish as this type of work needs unique/common sense approaches and understanding to insure a long lasting life for the project (to prevent mold, leaks, cracks, crumbling, drainage and other problems).

A well done for this job.

How do you get the work supports of of the roof? I don't know anything about shingle roofs. My house roof is all standing seam metal and the garage roof pitch is low enough that such supports were not needed.

BPR

Very nice job, always hard work balancing on a roof. Lucky as well to get that number of fine days.