The Roof Saga, part 9

This post was written about 6 months ago (while Dan was still working on the roof) and saved as a draft. I discovered it just now when I sat down to write some more.
I'm posting it as written.


Today Dan got to work on clean up on the guest bath roof area so that he could raise it to the same level as the surrounding roof. In case you missed the big reveal you can read about it here.

As you may recall the area had obvious evidence of previous termite activity (as seen here).

It became obvious rather quickly that the little guys got around.

Here is a normal looking 2" x 6" removed from this same area.

Here is the reality.

Completely hollow.

Dan went to pry this out and it completely "shattered."

More carnage. Water and termites. The enemies of any wood building.

Just a Taste...

Even though we haven't been posting, there has been a ton of activity going on. In fact,

by the time Dan comes down from the roof he's too tired to post. So, I thought

I'd give you a nutshell of information to whet your appetite for a more meaty post...

When last we wrote, Dan had uncovered more water and termite damage. He had also seen live termites and was trying to locate the source. Since then, we had our termite guy, Rob, come out and treat the infested area (under the covered patio, where the cement was apparently poured over wood. Yep. Brilliant.). And, Dan has been working evenings (after his paying job) and 12 hour days on his 'days off' up on the roof. The damage is unimaginable and keeps on coming! We have also had a few friends come in and help. Bob has been here MANY days and is a super big help. His brother, Ken, has spent a couple of days working hard on our behalf, too.

Scott has been here a few more times and recently Marius has come to help.

We appreciate SO MUCH the help of these guys! Thank you!!!!

We discovered this morning that the structural integrity of part of the roof (over Jen's room) was severely compromised. Check out the photos below. Marius, Scott & Dan are up there, as I type, reworking the beams. Or something. You know, I'm just a girl...what do I know?

Dan will tell you all about it when he has some time and mental energy.

In the meantime, we will not make our deadline so who knows what will happen with our insurance. I'm sure our agent will get us set up with something...

And, since Dan started on the roof (almost 3 months ago) it has rained on us 5 times...

but who's counting? No major indoor damage but a couple of times we had

pots and containers all over the place. That was fun!

We continue to see sunlight through cracks in the ceiling in many of our rooms, but the work is progressing so that finally the insulation and sheathing is beginning to be replaced in some areas. Good news for our electric bill!

Above all, we are having a great adventure. And, for those that might be wondering if we regret our purchase...the answer is a resounding NO! We still absolutely LOVE this house and are SO BLESSED to be here. That said, it will be nice when Dan has a little breathing time.  :-)

Jen had gotten up early (when Dan went onto the roof at 7:30) and moved to the bed downstairs. Good thing, too!

We'll be back with more detailed information as soon as possible. Until then, thanks for reading!

The Roof Saga, part 8

July 14th and we got to clearing off the roofing over our Master Bedroom.

This is what he started with today.

First Dan had to remove all the temporary flashing that he put on last winter to keep the roof from leaking. Oh well, we knew it was going to be like this.

Of course we knew that it wouldn't be good under the top layer of roofing... but this was bad. This is dry-rotted plywood. Toothpick anyone? 

Most of the plywood (remember this is under three layers of roofing but on top of another three layers of material) was badly water damaged.

When he got to the South side of this section he uncovered this...

What could it possibly be?? A hidden vault? A passage to Alice's wonderland?

Nope. 

Plywood, insulation, flashing... probably the remnants of an old stove or heater vent pipe.

We'll get back to this soon.

This is where we ended the day. Another section cleared. Yeah!!

Note: July 19th. 6:30a.m. Ginger says to Dan, "Hey, it's raining!" Dan, "What?!!"
Dan runs outside and up on the roof and spreads the plastic out.

Here's what it looked like... The rain was very light and very short. No leaks that we could see.

The Roof Saga, part 7

The temperature was headed toward 100 degrees when Dan headed up to the roof after church on Sunday (July 8th). We didn't spend too much time up their BUT we got twice as much done because Dan had some help from our good friend Scott.

If you will notice the area of the roof in the upper right side of this picture you can see where Dan stopped yesterday. There was still a couple hundred square feet of rolled roofing and shingles (four layers deep) to remove.

With Scott's help it went twice as fast!

After about two hours it looked like this. WooHoo!! Thank you Scott!

It was really too hot to keep going so they called it a "Roofing Day" (A "Roofing Day" is kind of like dog years... one hour working in 100 degrees on a roof is like five regular work hours. So, they effectively put in a full day's work.)

We'll be back soon!

The Roof Saga, part 6

And the work continues...

This is where we left things on the 4th of July.
Dan got to work removing more roofing material and plywood.

He figured out that if he made small cuts on either side of the seams of the top layer of rolled roofing he could pull them up like a zipper. This made it much easier to pull up the top couple of layers of roofing material. Things were moving along fairly well... but every time we think that we have seen all there is to see in the realm of aberrant building practices...we find something else.

Pop Quiz: You've added a heavy swamp cooler to your roof but you didn't take the time to build a proper structure to support it. Then it comes time for you to add your 8th layer of roofing and you notice that the roof is beginning to sag. Realizing that you don't have a level surface to lay your new roofing on, what do you do?

Answer: You add some loose gravel of course!

Yep. Loose gravel. Another "there, I fixed it!" moment, to be sure.


Although we have seen many unique approaches and products used to fix things around here, have you noticed that one of the classics has been missing from the list? What is the go-to secret weapon of all self-respecting Red Green fans everywhere?

That's right, Duct tape!
How do you keep water from running down your vent pipes into your attic?

Why, a few wraps of duct tape and some good ol' Henry's roofing patch.

After several hours of scraping off old roofing, gravel and duct tape, Dan sat down under his shade and looked around...

WOW!!! It looks like a bomb went off!

It's always gonna look worse before it looks better. He kept at it for a little longer...

By the end of 7.5 hours of work it looked like this.
Progress is progress.

And if it isn't obvious by now...there will be more to come.

The Roof Saga, part 5

On the Fourth of July most people like to go to the park, hang out by a lake, have a bar-b-que... maybe watch some fireworks... but Dan thought that he would rather work on the roof.

At least he decided to borrow Bob's pop-up shade. 

Wow! That really made a great difference. Thanks Bob!

Nothing too remarkable to show for this day's work. But here is a picture that shows the difference between the main (original 1948) roof and the master bed/bath add-on. We wonder why they didn't build them level with each other... but then we laugh at such silly questions.

Here is what things looked like after a few hours work. More plywood exposed. More roofing and plywood removed. It's a holiday so Dan only worked for a couple of hours.

He did, however, do one more task.

Here is a picture of roof over the potting shed area. It's built using 2x4's and fiberglass panels.

He is going to need to remove these panels to work on the lower roof eve so he took them out. 

We really like it opened up like this. (That's the kitchen window you see.)

By the way, Dan told me he used a section of 2x4 like a battering ram and knocked the roof off. HA! Take that!!!

We'll be back again soon!

The Roof Saga, part 4

Well, the tear off continues...

You may remember from last time that we uncovered this original lower roof over the guest bath area. If you notice in the photo above, the roof over the cover patio was tied into the structure that we removed a couple of posts back. We needed to support that roof area so that we could continue our work here.

So, Dan added four 10 foot 2'x4's for support. The roof is also attached to the studio area and some other posts (already in the structure of the house). Although it will not withstand a hurricane it should be good for now.

Dan continued with the tear off on that lower roof.

Removing the boards damaged by previous termites...

and water damage. In a lot of ways water damage can be more extensive than termites.

Possibly because some people don't take it as a serious threat.

He then went on to remove more of the many layers of roofing from the main roof section and found even more wonders...

Although it's kind of hard to make out in these photos. The previous "roofer," in an apparent attempt at strengthening a water damaged (dry rot infested) area of the roof, covered the section with a combination of peg board and metal sheeting. These were screwed together and to the surrounding area to "fix it." As in... "Look! There I fixed it! It's good as new!"

Here is what was under that nifty peg board bandage.

After clearing some more of the roofing you can see the extent of the damage.

So, after a another day's work this is where we stand. Note that the wood showing on the upper right of the picture is the plywood that is still covering up another 4 layers of roofing material.

Another wonderful episode following soon!

The Roof Saga, part 3

Well, the next step to our re-roof project was to begin tear-off.

Dan began at the section of roof that he unearthed in our last post. This is a section that is just above our Master bathroom. It was becoming evident rather quickly that again there were going to be more surprises.

This eye bolt was literally covered in layers of "Henry's" roofing cement and completely invisible until Dan dug through the layers. But not only did they decide to bury eye bolts ...

They buried the roof under more roof! 

If you look at this picture very carefully you will see a veritable stratification of roofing. As one of our friends said, "It's like an archeological dig!" How many layers can you count?

Dan thinks that the first layer of tar paper and the silvery stuff with gravel in it was probably the original roof from 1948. 

(Note: it is bad practice to have more than three layers of material on a roof.)

Judging from the technique used by the previous roofer a roof will be more waterproof if you use nails every 2 inches on the seams of rolled roofing... NOT!

And, it does create much more work when removing the roof, of course.

Here is a shot after several hours of removal. Three layers of roofing, 1 layer of plywood, and 4 more layers of roofing.  And, it's 90+ degrees outside too!

The next day Dan began to work on removing the roofing material from the guest bath area that he had uncovered the week before.

The previous roofer had wrapped the eve of the main roof, on down to the lower roof, with rolled roofing. This is kind of a creepy photo... it reminds us of the Borg for some reason.

The roof was very "spongy" in several places on this section. Dan noticed that there was an added layer of some kind. He began to pry it up...

It was a double-thick layer of some kind of fiber board (acts like a sponge when water is present). Note the water staining... and the hole on the left side of the roof.

Definite problem. Maybe we should just stop now and cover everything back up.  :-)

Dan didn't think that was a good idea.
This section had a lot of water damage. I don't know if you have been able to tell from these photos but this section of roof slopes toward the back of the house.
At first we could not figure out why in the world someone would build the roof like that???
Then we realized that this section of roof was original but the roof to the rear was a later add-on (the master bath, closet and bedroom). This still does not explain why they didn't build this section of roof up the be even with the main roof. Well, we are going to fix it right this time. "Hold on little house we are going to fix you up right."


Of course water damage isn't the only kind of damage we found...

No wonder the roof was spongy...

Termites! Fortunately this is old damage. But boy were they hungry!

To be continued...