Roofing, or Why Home Repair Is Like Writing
My family and I spent our Memorial Day weekend up on the roof. Literally. Though the photo above isn’t one of us, you get the idea. The process began on Thursday afternoon, when our shingles and other materials were delivered to the roof. Friday afternoon, the dumpster arrived. And Friday evening, we began tear off of two layers of shingles.
The guy in the picture (which I used because I haven’t yet pulled the photos we took off my camera) is using a “shingle shovel,” which turns out to be not overly helpful. We found hay forks much more effective. The work is exhausting. You shove the hay fork as hard as you can under the shingles and tar paper, then press down to loosen the nails and staples, then push it forward to roll the shingles back so you can shove again. The process repeats itself thousands of times before the roof is stripped.
If you let yourself think about it, you could easily grow discouraged. There’s just so much area to clear. And the hay fork process is only the beginning, because there are still lots of nails and staples left in the decking once the shingles are cleared off. Each one has to be pulled out or hammered in before the re-roofing process can begin.
Our house is 44 years old, so we found surprises hiding beneath the shingles–rotted sections of decking in an area where our house is heavily shaded, and an infestation of carpenter ants in a section that overhangs our front porch. The whole section had to be removed and replaced, right down to the joists. “Removal” makes it sound so clinical and quiet. But the reciprocating saw shook the whole house, and probably rattled the neighbors’ windows, as my brother hacked away the rotting wood.
Then the re-roofing begins. Weather guard, felt, flashing, shingles, drip edges, vents, ridge caps. And the trips out for more supplies.
We worked from about 8 a.m. to dark every day. Of course, we took breaks, and my mother and mother-in-law made sure the work crew got fed, and fed well, but the work drove us on. No one wanted to sit down for long, even though we were tired.
Because in truth, it’s satisfying work. When you go down the ladder and look up from the ground, you no longer see just the little patch you’ve been working on, but the whole thing. And it’s amazing, from that different perspective, how easy it is to see the progress.
It reminded me, as many things do, of writing a novel.