We're Getting a New Roof on our House Today
Hi,
I thought this might interest you. Our cedar shake roof is about 37 years old.
It has lasted very well because the shakes were cut from old growth timber. New cedar shakes now only last for about 6 - 10 years because the younger wood is
less dense. Since the big forest fires here we decided that a dry cedar shake
roof was no longer what should be sheltering our home, and when a leak mark appeared in the upstairs library we were sure!
Two of our kids secretly decided to help pay for the roof for their parents. Those are our eldest son and his wife, and youngest daughter and her husband. When our youngest daughter and family were here on Easter weekend she and her husband and children gave us some cash. It was a surprise, and was very loving of them. :-))
Ben had a new roof installed on a duplex he manages for an out-of-town client and he was very satisfied with the job so he first considered that little company.
Over a period of time he had checked the costs of other jobs he saw, and got two estimates and a look at a neighbour's similar sized roof, which cost $13,000.
It turned out that the lowest and best estimate came from the small roofing contractor who did the duplex. It came in a $8,000. One of the others had said he required a crane rental at $1,000 per day!
This morning a supplier of fibreglass roofing shingles and plywood for our roof
arrived with those items on a huge truck with an attached crane. It was very interesting to me to watch from the bedroom windows as the long, heavy truck was guided by the roofer to back safely up our neighbour's driveway so that the crane
could swing several loads very slowly and deliberately as cranes move, across our second level hillside bushes and onto the front grass right in front of the house. I was glad that we are and our neighbours have always been friendly and cooperative with each other, and yet managed to give each other our privacy. This
family has have been our neighbours before, in a previous area where we lived almost 40 years ago. We were surprised to find ourselves with the same good neighbours who had moved away a year or two before us, when they turned out to be our new (old) neighbours here when we bought this lot.
So now the men and both trucks have left with a job well done. They managed to
finish just before 12. At 1 the roofer and his crew will return to start stripping the old cedar shakes off, throwing them down onto tarpaulins placed to catch
them. They'll nail down new plywood and tarpaper, and then apply new pale and
mid grey fibreglass shingles. It looks like rain today but I've been assured that they have more tarpaulins, (tarps,) to lay over any open roof areas. The whole job is expected to take three days.
Ben is, of course, extremely busy at work in his office. Things are even more hectic than usual because it's the first day after the Easter long weekend and personal income tax returns must be filed by the end of this month. I knew how he
would be disappointed that he couldn't take part in the interesting activity here. He was a building contractor for many years, and loves everything to do with building, so I phoned and briefly described what was happening.
This afternoon he's going to speak to the roofer about installing chimney grates
on the chimney flues on the roof so that birds can't roost or nest inside, and
sparks can't fly out of the chimneys when we use the fireplace or an auxiliary
wood stove in the kitchen during a possible winter emergency when we need them for heat.
Affectionately, Mary
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