Everybody needs a place to live. Hopefully that place will keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And if you are really lucky you will be dry when it rains.
Of course in order for all those things the place needs to be enclosed. With that in mind and also because we have the hope of selling our house for something a little larger, we decided it was time to re-roof.
At first I contemplated hiring a professional roofing company to come in and do the job. Then a friend from church who happens to be a professional handyman and I got talking about it and he said he could do the job. And because I am cheap, I figured he would give me a good deal because I would be helping out. So let's get started.
Our house is small. It sets in a spot not much more than 25' x 25'. The roof really isn't too large. The only real problem is that it is a 12/12 pitch (that means it is a 45 degree angle). All the preliminaries were done as to the measurements and choosing of colors (Mint Frost) the week of June 23 with the intention to start on June 30. So here goes:
The day begins with my dad coming over and helping to clear up the yard a little. Two trees were up against the house and they had to come down. In addition there was another tree at the end of the driveway and an old metal storage shed that had to be dealt with. That was all taken down and we began to fill the 20 yard dumpster with junk.
When Tom arrived we were ready to get to work on the house. We began by tearing off the boxing that had been built for the eaves. All work started on the north side of the house. The south side will be done after the north.
The
picture on the left is how the boxing looked. This is actually the south
side after the trees had been taken down.
The picture on the right shows how the eaves are being rebuilt. First an extension is added to each of the rafters. Then a 2x6 is attached as a fascia board. The roof is then extended with a piece of sheeting. When finished this will get enclosed.
The shingles then needed to come off the roof. As we are doing this one side at a time, we began with the north side.
Here are a few shots of how the house looked at the end of the first day.
Roof extended and
first
Bare spot where shed and
tree
Roofing material that was delivered.
shingles
removed.
used to
be.
We felt we had made some good progress throughout the day especially since it was really only a little over half a day that we spent working on it.
This was to be the day that the stripping of the old shingles was to begin in earnest. Our original plan was to only strip the edges and lay the new shingles overtop the old shingles. Our hope was to minimize the amount of time we had to spend walking around on the roof. Much to our dismay when we began on the lower edge the day before we found there were already two layers of shingles. This meant that all the old stuff had to come off and we had to get back down to the original sheeting.
This
is how the roof looked just before lunch. The back half of the north side
had been stripped to the peak and we were half way up the front half. This
was a process that took us a long time. We were using shovels to break
loose the old shingles. We could only go as far as our reach would take us
and then we would have to add cleats to support us to go to the next
level.
This picture shows Tom hard at work while I am safely on the ground. 
As we continued on and the shingles began to pile up on the ground, clean up had to be done. For this my dad had come over to help. He did not want to get up on the roof as he had already fallen off a ladder while doing a repair project on his own house. So he cleaned up the mess his kid made.
After lunch we went back to it. It was hot. Walking around on the sheeting on the roof was one thing but maneuvering on the old dark colored shingles was almost painful. The temperature and humidity were both over 90. Not too mention that after 10 years of working soft office jobs, I was not used to this kind of work. Nevertheless we persevered. By shortly after 1:00 pm the south side of the roof was completely stripped and it was time for a break.
This is
how it looked when we got down and admired our work. There was only one
problem. It didn't look quite right all bare. So we had to get back
up and do some more work on it. We weren't worried about rain yet, but we
thought it best to cover one side completely so the first layer of felt was
rolled onto the roof. Here is Tom up at the top starting off with the
first course of shingles.
This
is also when I got my first taste of real work.
Because of the size of the roof and the pitch, Tom thought that having the shingles delivered to the roof would have meant they would all be in our way. I agree with him, but they sure were heavy to carry up there one bundle at a time.
Anyone familiar with roofing will probably look at the picture of Tom starting from the top and think that we were crazy. We were crazy. With any sense of sanity I never would have gotten up there. But I don't know if I could have gotten anybody who knew better how to deal with my roof. This was the first time that Tom attempted a top-down roof job. He had seen it in an article about it and decided that it was the way to do this one.
I'll describe the process: Start with the roll of felt. Roll it along the peak for the length of the house. Tom chose to do about 3/4 of the length at first. Measure from the peak down to establish the starting point for the shingles. Snap a chalk line at that distance. If done right you leave the bottom couple inches of felt uncovered. Then you start laying shingles from the line up. When that course is finished you repeat the process with another row of felt that gets inserted below the upper layer. Then measure for the course, snap the line and work up again. When you get up to the first row you need to insert this course under it. Continue on until you are at the bottom. A major advantage to this is that with a light colored shingle you are not marking them up by walking on them or having to put cleats through them.
Here is
Tom putting on the first shingles. By this time in the day we were all
pretty well worn out and ready to call it a day. Tom just wanted to see
how the shingles were going to look.
The day dawned with a lot of work calling on us to get things done. So Tom got an early start with the shingles. While he was working on the north side covering it, I was on the south side tearing off the shingles. I would come over from time to time and help Tom roll another layer of felt and also to carry up bundles of shingles. I'm not sure which of those was the worst job.
The morning went on and then came our lunch break and work was progressing along. Somewhere in there I managed to get this shot of Tom.
This was sometime after 1:00 pm. Once again the heat was substantial and wearing us out. But Tom had made good progress and was working down to about the level where he would be able to get off the roof and have to work from a ladder to continue.
While
Tom was working outside, Dad had gone inside to tackle another project. He
was installing an interior door. Me, I was just roaming around and taking
pictures. That's the joy of being the boss (or at least the guy who is
paying for everything).
Actually, I had made some progress on the south side of the house with the tear off. It was nowhere near completed but it was at least started. And as the old saying goes: "Once begun, half done." So by the end of the day here is how it all looked.
This is the north side. The shingles are not run all the way to the end of the roof on the back side yet. That is because the cleats were a little too short and Tom couldn't quite reach it. That and the room that is added onto the back was going to take a some work to get a rake board to clear it. In other words it was just too much work for the day. It would still be there in the morning.
I
had removed all the old boxing from the eaves on the south side. I found a
few bees and wasps had made their homes in them also. So I had to stop for
a little while as I do have a slight allergy to their stings. Once the
bees had met their doom I then proceeded to work on shingle removal. My
dad even came out and helped on this first section. We only had one more
day to work before the holiday and a lot of things to accomplish. My
vacation time was soon going to be over and we had only allotted this week for
the real work. Having to do the complete tear off cost us a lot of time we
hadn't expected to put in.
The day dawned and we really had no new developments just picking up where we left off the previous day. The only difference was that my dad had another commitment so we were one man short. That meant that I actually had to work so the camera stayed inside for most of the day.
It was after lunch before I started getting any shots of the progress. By then Tom had worked his way down on the back edge of the roof. When he got even with the rest of the shingles it was time for another layer of rolled roofing. Only on the lower edge we used the rubber membrane instead of felt. This was to help guard against ice dams. A new boot was put on over the drain vent and then Tom started with the last of the shingles on the north side.
Here
is Tom working diligently on the shingles despite all the heat. At this
level he no longer can work on the roof and ladders do not work well as the
reach is limited. Tom used a neat little device called a pick. It is
basically a metal plank that can be strung between two ladders. It keeps a
person up to a decent level and gives the flexibility of walking around. 
While Tom was working away on this, I was on the other side of the house getting up above the level of the ladders and attaching cleats to keep me going higher. This is how my part of the roof looked at the same time Tom's was looking so good. The difficult thing with my tear off of this section was the electrical lines coming into the house. They were attached to the rake board on the back of the house and the drip molding was actually wedged in between the board and the insulators. I was very careful around that part of the roof.
I put the camera down and went back to work. The big goal for the day on the north side was to get it shingled to have it sealed against the weather as storms were predicted for the holiday weekend. So while the north side was "finished" the south side was going to need something done to it to protect it from the elements. So I figured I might as well finish up the back half.
I did
come down from my side of the roof long enough to get this shot. This is
Tom nailing in the last shingle on this side. It was a crowning
moment. Then I had more work to do. But first Tom and I took a
little break and went shopping at the Big Lots.
We needed to pick up some temporary roof covering and they had tarps. We
bought a couple of 16' x 20' tarps and headed back to the homestead. Once
there the tarps were attached to the peak of the house to cover it and then
draped over the south side.
That's
me at the top of the roof working to clear off the last of the shingles on the
back half. Tom has already draped the front half with the tarp. My
wife thought this was a good picture as it showed me actually doing something so
she took it.
As soon as I was finished on my part of the roof I got down and watched as Tom finished covering the roofs with the tarps. Which was a good thing to do as the clouds were starting to roll in.
Here Tom finishes attaching the temporary roofing. This proved to be very well done. We did have rain over the holiday weekend and we had no drips anywhere in the house which was better than the old roof had worked in a very long time.
This was not only the end of the fourth day, it marked the end of the work week as the Fourth of July was the next day and we had celebrating to do. I know I celebrated not having to get back up on that roof. Actually the roof would see no more action until the following week. And I had to go back to work.
The week started the week ended. No new pictures. But some progress on the house. Between all the rain drops and me having to go back to work some of the week's details are gone. But the end result was good. By Tuesday night the roof was completely stripped. This culminated in me working the flashing around the chimney loose and necessitating some repair work for a chimney that had a little wiggle.
Dad came back over on Tuesday and helped with some clean up. Julia and I continued in the effort by picking up many shingles from the ground to get them in the dumpster. We were in a bit of a rush as the dumpster was leaving on Wednesday. So I got really hot working on the roof and then by picking up the shingles. As we were picking up the last load to take to the dumpster the rain started to fall. And that made it more exciting. My body went from one extreme (very hot) to the other (very cold) in about 2.2 seconds. This did not do my system any good.
Somehow by the time I got home Wednesday night Tom had gotten most of the back half of the south side shingled. He was working install the ridge vent when I got home from work. He had repaired the chimney and installed new flashing. This also took care of the entrance the bats had been using to get into our house on occasion. And the really big news was that at least there was felt on all the roof even if there weren't shingles. This really helped to seal out the weather better. Wednesday would prove to be the last day to really work on the house as the rain dampened Thursday considerably.
Again the week starts and I have no pictures to show for the beginning of the week or the intermediate shots for progress. I do words to describe the progress.
Tom came back on Tuesday and brought help with him. His son, Sam, came along and together they made significant progress on Tuesday and Wednesday. They did not work full days on either of those, but when I got home I was pleased. The south side had the extensions attached to match what was done on the north side. The rest of the shingles were also put on. Now the house is sealed and Tom said he could rest easy knowing my house would not leak. Ironically the roof on his house started to leak over the weekend.
After the roof extension and shingles then the work began on the eaves. Aluminum was put up for fascia and soffit. I don't have a many words for this only the pictures to show how things looked at the end of the week.
South
side of roof with shingles complete. Also the aluminum fascia
attached. This is really starting to look good.
This is a detail shot of the north side of the house. The new eaves look much nicer. The end has been boxed with siding to match the house. That will all get tied in when the house is stained in a few weeks. Right now we are just basking in the glory of our new roof. There are still some finishing touches to be done but the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible.