Day 6 dawns…and guest goats are wandering the neighborhood.

Guest Goats at dawn

It’s all fiddly-bits today…except for that little ‘ol thing sticking WAY up there…I’m worried about it…the look of the tower is critical as it is the feature that draws the eye first on this house. This shingle is all about attitude and the pattern is critical. It HAS to be right. Brian (the owner of Service First Roofing and Construction) says they’ll get it right pretty much no matter what it takes.

With ten or so guys tackling all the little flashings, hip roofs, and other features, it goes fast.

East side is buttoned up.

Very shortly the cleanup is complete and most of the crew wraps it up and leaves. Everything but the tower is complete, or very close to it. We’ll do a walk around and they’ll tackle any issues left. With a roof this large and complex…there will be issues…but I’ve been watching the work pretty closely and there are surprisingly few problems.

South side looking good!

The difficulty of getting the pattern right on the conical tower stumped them for a bit…it was so important that it be right that they decided it was time to call in an expert.

They stripped it, wrapped it, and tarped it against the coming rains and promised to be back Monday with the expert.

Tower wrapped.

We are rain-tight! Woot!

My terrification level is down to about a 0.5. My lady (the house) is safe and protected…now it’s just cleaning up the look.

Even better…my Lady (the wife) was up to traveling and arrived at the Old Vic in the afternoon.

T’was going to be a good night!

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Day five dawns. I’m worried about my ladies. My woman is still in another city…a temporary crown gone wrong has given her some pain and an infection…and my house has a ways to go yet. The weather dudes have scheduled significant rain for tomorrow night.

Day 5 dawns

Very little sleep for me last night. I had a spire to repair you see. It’s quite large…just over 7 feet tall…and built of 50/50 soldered galvanized sheet-metal. It’s rusted and cracked practically in two near the center…and I had to fix it with materials on hand in just a few hours.

Fortunately I excel at these sorts of things…I like the challenge and the odd…and I tend to have a LOT of odd stuff on hand.

Cracks and rust

Now here…I must confess…I failed to take pictures of the process. I pondered for quite some time…dug around in my supplies and tools…and by the time I figured out what to do about it I was so focused on the project that I simply went to work…and didn’t stop until it was done.

Short of it is…I took my Dewalt Sawzall and whacked it in half…and that…my friends…took an act of sheer will. This thing predates anybody that’s alive today!

The thought…unbidden, “Good lord…what if I *can’t* put it back together?”

I then chopped a bit out (the rusted through part), and fabricated a replacement section out of galvanized flashing (same thickness as most of the existing construction) and finagled a couple reinforcing brackets to hold it all together again. A few sheet-metal screws, and then I cold-process zinced the thing. After that I cleaned up the new joint with some Bondo, and applied half-a-dozen coats of paint.

I did not finesse the finish too much (other than for durability) as the construction/soldering is kind of rough. The imperfections already there are much worse than any I left…and again…the thing resides some 40′ off the ground.

Ta Daaa! The finished spire!

Ooo…pointy! I think I’m pondering it’s suitability as a weapon at the moment. Some artifact of the irregularities of that middle bauble makes it look crooked in the picture…but trust me…it’s straight. I used a two-way laser level to line everything up.

Ooooo. Pointy!

My Mom…just because I can…(it’s important later).

My Mom checking out the spire…just because I can.

Other than some fiddly bits they wrapped up the east side.

The east got done…

And the south…

The southeast

In short order even the west side with the difficult eyebrow was shingled.

The eyebrow got shingled

They got the Cuernos del diablo back on in the early afternoon.

Oooo…Horny!

Tower work had started late yesterday evening…and continued today…but they rapidly figured out that putting THAT shingle on a cone was substantially different from the experience the tower guys they had with them had. It progressed slowly.

That shingle…on a cone…

Most of the guys were tackling “fiddly bits”…getting flashings and hip roofs correct…was well as ridge vents, more work on the eaves, and cutting in some soffit vents. There is also a small section of flat roof between the two northern dormers that had to be rebuilt.

The roof is substantially done. They tell me come hell or high water…they will be rain-tight tomorrow before the weather moves in.

My terrification level has dropped to about a 2…I like what I see…and I believe them.

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Day 4 dawns…and I’ve figured out how to make coffee again in one try. I call this an achievement. Work’s been requiring input, my woman’s in another city, as is my mistress (the Valk), and my third love (this house) is in pieces all over the place.

With no release and little rest…well…making coffee is about as complex as it gets.

Sunrise, day 4

It’s me that’s slightly tilted…

Not enough coffee yet.

I can still see large swaths of light in my attic…and it’s still disconcerting. (the shiny is not wet…that’s an IR sheet over the kitchen).

Looking out a hip-roof…

The crew shows up promptly at sunrise and immediately begins working.

South-side guy puts out!

The Siamese girls that run the household (singin’, “We are Siamese if you please…we are Siamese if you DON’T please…”) have not been one iota concerned about the horrendous noises, crashes, and bangs all week. Frankly I figured they’d be basket cases. I guess they must figure I’ve got that covered enough for all of us.

Construction Cats, as worked up as they seem to get.

Random stat: Ten large pepperoni pizzas…$87. These guys have been making so much progress I figured I’d spring for lunch.

Pointy

They brought me the spire late today…this is a good thing. Given the condition of Cuernos del diablo I figured it was going to have some condition issues and I’d need time to fix it.

The Spire….

Just getting several coats of paint on it is going to take some time.

This thing is about 7 feet tall!

Turns out I was right. A substantial crack and rusted out area right in the middle of it (where the white stuff is in the picture above) had seriously compromised it. It needed far more work than I thought.

A closeup of the spire flags…just because.

Since the tower work had started, they figured they’d need it back tomorrow afternoon. That’s less than 24 hours away!

Tower work starts.

Looks like I had some homework again…

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Meanwhile…the south side guy was making remarkable progress.

It seemed like pretty much one dude was working the south side today. This crew had obviously worked together a while and put the resources where they best served. There were guys shingling the north-side dormers, guys on the west/eyebrow challenge, and a crew of guys dealing with the sunroom and east side.

Once the stripping and majority of decking was done, the shingling seemed to take the most manpower…what with having to hork (technical term) 60 squares of shingles onto the roof, one bundle at a time (4 bundles to a square).

Once they were down to decking complex areas…one or two guys would tackle that. There simply wasn’t room for more and the others had plenty to do.

South decking complete.

Working hard.

The view from on high…

On the east side (sunroom side), guys were replacing facia

Replacing facia

And shingles were going down!

Shingles going down!

Shingles were also going down fast on the north side.

North side shingles.

If you’re wondering how the boards are held on without penetrating the shingles, they nail a bracket down above the course of shingles that they can then shingle over, and just unhook/pry up after they are done, leaving no holes in the shingles.

Bracket to hold toe boards.

And suddenly…the east side is shingled and the south side has the underlay and valleys ready.

And suddenly!

It’s time to tackle the hard part.

Another difficult feature.

Tomorrow…more fiddly bits, lots more shingles, and (insert scary music here) the tower.

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Day 3 dawns. I am heartened by the progress. They make fast work of it…and everything I’ve seen them do has been good work.

I’m frankly amazed at the progress.

I know they are approaching some difficult features though. The Tower. The Eyebrow. Lots of flashings. Replacement of the facia around the sunroom. All these “fiddly bits” will slow them down considerably. A significant chance of rain is now predicted for Saturday night and Sunday.

The Eyebrow. A difficult feature.

The eyebrow is a completely superfluous feature. It has no practical function at all, and as best as I’ve been able to determine, no particular symbolic significance. Seems somebody just pointed at that section of roof and said, “Let’s dress that up a bit.”

Typical Victorian, that.

Do we even need this thing?

We could have easily removed it. It HAS to be removed in fact…to remove the rest of the lath, deck underneath where it goes, and then put it back.

What does it even do?

The job would go faster and be less “fiddly” if we just tossed it. It would have been extremely difficult to successfully shingle in cedar shake and even with modern materials, extra care would have to be taken so it wouldn’t introduce a leak. It’s also a compound curve to put decking over.

NOT an easy thing.

Does anybody even notice it up there?

Are we the only ones that notice it?

Yeah. Easy. But, as has been shown…we just don’t do easy. Of COURSE we kept it. There was never even a serious question. This house…and the folks that built it…were ALL about attitude. How could we change that on our watch?

Lots of complex cuts here

It took two guys the better part of the day to figure out all the fiddly bits on the west side…and how to deck the compound curves…but they did it.

First they decked up to it…gave themselves the working space…

Then they puzzled over it for an hour or so…

And suddenly! (I blinked)

Decked!

And the west-side decking was done!

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Coffee. Surprisingly difficult. Before coffee anyway.

I’ve used this machine a thousand times. I do my bit to get it started and go away for a while.

When I come back I’ve got a pot of water. Hmmm. Cold water. Guess I filled the pot but didn’t actually pour it IN the machine. Sigh. At least I filled the pot.

Try again. Come back later. I’ve now got a pot of HOT water. Yah. Ya gotta actually PUT coffee in the machine as well. At least I put in the filter.

Add coffee. Take shower. Come back. STILL have a pot of hot water. Oh…yep. I suppose it would help if I poured the water back through.

I resolved that when I ruled the world…ya wouldn’t have to actually MAKE coffee…before you’d HAD coffee.

I also resolved to NOT use any power-tools today.

The Day Dawns

Day 2 dawned with the gorgeous weather predicted…as expected. It’s rare to get a 5-day window of predicted weather in Texas with ZERO percent chance of rain…but when ya do…it generally holds. Most of our forecasts end up reading something like, “Sunny with a 50% chance of widely scattered severe storms.” Today was typical Texas in at least one department…it was below freezing this morning and expected to climb into the upper 70’s by evening. A fifty degree temperature swing. Sheesh.

In the quiet before the crew arrived I found myself standing in the middle of the street, drinking my coffee and gazing at the north side decking. It seemed to calm my nerves…seeing just how much progress they had made.

The day dawns.

Of course, all I had to do was walk around to the other side of the house to see the carnage. Within ten minutes of arrival and before I’d started my second cup of coffee, the crew was hard at work.

Tearing up the Sunroom

Our decision to completely re-deck the place was vindicated again over the Sunroom…as the guys simply peeled entire 4×8 sheets…complete with shingles…off the roof and carried them away.

Peel it up…

With even *almost* properly applied decking…this simply shouldn’t be possible.

…and carry it away.

I had some issues to deal with for work (on the computer) and then had to run uptown for an errand or two. When I got back I peeked around the north side. They were already shingling!

Oh yeah…it’s gonna be gorgeous!

We spent considerable extra $$$ to put a premium shingle…premium meaning both durability and attitude…on this house. There was no way I was going back to cedar shake (here in Texas, we call cedar shake, “kindling”) but we wanted to have a Victorian look or attitude to anything we do to the house.

This caused considerable anxiety as well…it made choosing a roofing company much more difficult (most didn’t even want to discuss specialty shingles), and the difference between “good enough” and “awesome” is a considerable amount of dollars.

Would it be worth it? Were we making the right decision? It’s just a roof after all.

Shingle choice vindicated!

One look at the shingles going down and we KNEW we’d made the proper choice. It was going to be stunning!

It seemed I only blinked and suddenly…the east side AND the sunroom were decked. There was some structural repair over the sunroom and kitchen that were addressed in this process as well.

East side and sunroom decked!

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Day 2…sort of. It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep. The uncharacteristic anxiety and missing my wife have combined to make rest elusive.

That’s okay though…I had homework!

They had brought me The Devil’s Horns…and I had to give them back.

The Devil’s Horns

One of the first things they did was remove Cuernos del diablo or ‘The Devil’s Horns’ from the house and carefully bring them down to me so I could repair them. It was important to us that we preserve the distinct features of the house. The original roof was cedar shake…and the ridges, particularly where several meet…were difficult to cap with shingles. The solution was usually a metal cap, but as in most things Victorian…when they needed something functional, they often said something like, “Hey! It may as well be interesting too!”

As with most things high up…the scale of the roof was misleading. They are bigger than most expect…and stand just over two feet tall.

They stand just over two feet tall.

A hundred-fifteen years of high winds, hail, and Texas weather had taken their toll. Many of the seams were cracked or broken and parts of the internal structure were rusted away.

Cracked joints

An additional difficulty…at some point they had been painted with a coat of what I believe is coal-tar epoxy…a truly tenacious substance usually reserved for old, ugly steel boats.

Coming Apart

Originally constructed of 50/50 soldered, galvanized sheet-metal, restoring them in short order presented a significant challenge.

To re-solder them they would need to be completely cleaned or the solder wouldn’t flow or hold. TIG welding might be appropriate, but the joints would have still to be thoroughly cleaned and the heat of the welding would melt the good solder joints and the entire thing would come apart. The rust on parts of the thing would also create problems.

Coal-tar epoxy is impervious to chemical strippers, and can’t be ground/sanded off as it rapidly clogs abrasives. The Horns were too thin for sand-blasting as well. I could probably “media blast” them…something like walnut shells works well on sheet metal…but there was no way I could find a shop that could do that sort of thing in the time I had. Expense was also an issue…I expect any sheet metal shop I went to would just want to toss them and start from scratch…and that would take many hours (and more $$$) of work.

I elected to create brackets out of galvanized sheet to go on the inside spanning the various joints, and then used sheet metal screws to put the things back together. Joints were sealed with butyl rubber sealant before being screwed together. I then ground to the metal and bondo’d the rusted areas, knocked out the hail dents with a block and ball-peen and a LOT of patience (and more than a little swearing), and then “cold-galvanized” any exposed metal.

Repaired Devil’s Horn

About 5 coats of high-end paint followed, inside and out. The result was a clean look and solid, corrosion-protected structure. They should be fine for another 115 years…with maybe a quick paint job now and then.

Not too bad!

All in all…there’s about 8-10 hours work (the final coats of paint the next night) in these things. Fitting the brackets was finicky work, but I expect the joints are stronger then when these were new (they were never a “high-end” finish piece of work…since the closest observer is usually more than 40 feet away from them).

If they fall apart in 50 years…there’s always the option of having them completely broken down and resoldered…or re-created from scratch.

Satisfied with my night’s work, I started the coffee and then laid down for a couple hours rest. the crew would be back soon.

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Parts of this house HAD been stripped to the lath and re-decked in the 1990’s…principally the south side. One of the decisions we made was to spend extra and remove that decking and replace it as well.

We did this for three reasons.

1) Our new decking is TechShield decking. It incorporates an IR barrier on the underside. This keeps radiant/IR heat out of the house and can reduce your air-conditioning needs by nearly 20%. Here in Texas…that is significant. Replacing the south side decking with Techshield seemed to be important to me as the south side of the house gets the most sun.
2) The proper way to redeck this roof is to ALSO strip the lath. This had not been done on that redo.
3) My instincts told me that old decking had NOT been installed correctly. I’m not a pro roofer, but I could look up at the 1990’s shingling job and see that the courses were not even or kept in line. This is the mark of an amateur and gave me no reason to believe they had taken any care in installing the decking. Doesn’t do me much good to install a premium shingle that’s good for high wind if the decking it’s nailed to flies off in a light Texas breeze.

Truthfully, in the back of our minds we wondered if we were wasting time and effort…and more importantly…money.

As usual, my instincts were solid. As soon as they started peeling the old decking off our decision was wholeheartedly vindicated.

The old decking coming off in sheets!

The old decking simply wasn’t attached well. There were about a third as many nails as there should of been and the few that actually hit anything were just into the lath…which is not very solid or thick lumber and was only intended to nail cedar shake to.

Had it been attached correctly, they would have had to rip the old decking to shreds to remove it. Instead, they were simply lifting entire sheets up and off, without even the nails pulling through. A good wind storm catching it just right would have destroyed this.

The nails didn’t even pull through!

On this job they will remove the lath to put down the new decking, and it will be nailed to the VERY substantial rafters.

The new shingle and decking.

Once the truck was unloaded, a bunch of the guys started decking the north side of the house, while the rest kept right on stripping. It was a dance…almost…there was art, skill, and physical prowess…and a whole lot more noise.

This was about the time the wife (safely in another city away from the destruction) called and asked what I was doing.

“Watching about a dozen strippers dancing around,” I replied in a stunned voice, “Truly an amazing sight!”

That may not have been a properly worded answer.

We’ve been together a while now. She just laughed and responded with, “Well, be sure and tip them properly!”

Stripping the south side

I found myself fascinated by what was fast becoming a skeleton of our house…and the pace that it occurred was simultaneously encouraging and utterly terrifying.

Going fast!

Oh good lord I hope they can put this back together!

Some of the guys had taken off to the landfill with the 1st truck and trailer full of debris. Our city transfer station is only open a couple days of the week…and it turns out it doesn’t take roofing materials anyway…so they had to truck the stuff to one of several cities that would accept the load (the cities charge substantial fees for this).

All done but the dumping

North Peaks stripped

Mesmerized by the destruction (train-wreck style) I didn’t really notice the decking work until sunset when they started wrapping up for the day. I walked around to look at the north side and saw amazing progress.

By sunset the north side was decked!

These boys worked till there was just enough light to put their tools away and then vanished into the night. They had traveled far to do this job and were staying in Paris, Texas…some 30 miles away. Makes for a long day!

In the sudden quiet I grabbed some random stuff out of the freezer and made something unremarkable for dinner. I was somewhat stunned really…I hadn’t expected the project to generate so much stress on my part. I’m usually quite laid-back about taking stuff apart…and usually fully capable of putting it back together. This job? Not so much.

Ah well. Dinner. And then I had homework to do.

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I’m a builder…a doer. I’ve been repairing and creating things all my life. One thing you learn quick…at least if you’re going to accomplish anything worthwhile…is that ya gotta tear stuff up before you can make things better.

…and you can’t be even a little bit shy about it.

Terrification Level 9.5

True to their word, bright and early Monday morning Service First Roofing and Construction showed up with about 12 guys and started tearing my roof apart. It was an amazing thing to watch…and the progress was surprisingly fast. Some of the facets of this roof had more than 4 layers of shingles, and much of the house was still clad in the original cedar shake underneath.

One of the first things they did was remove Cuernos del diablo or ‘The Devil’s Horns’ from the house and carefully bring them down to me so I could repair them. It was important to us that we preserve the distinct features of the house. The original roof was cedar shake…and ridges, particularly where several meet…were difficult to cap with shingles. The solution was usually a metal cap, but as in most things Victorian…when they needed something functional, they often said something like, “Hey! It may as well be interesting too!”

The Devil’s Horns

In very short order, I could see sky through my attic.

Lots ‘O guys attacked from the north

It was a truly terrifying sight.

While others attacked from the South

Seeing sky from your attic…is not a natural thing.

Down to the lath

Around noon the truck-load of materials showed up. And I mean the entire truck…not just a part of the load…All of that stuff…is just for The Old Vic.

This entire truck-‘O-stuff is just for our roof.

This machine…I want one.

I. WANT. ONE.

Not only is it handy for horking (that’s a technical term) heavy stuff off a truck…it also removes stumps!

Forklift got hung on an old stump. No problem!

I *REALLY* thought it would be a lot easier to stand back and watch these guys work on my house…but I have to confess…my main thought at this point…

Good lord…what if they can’t put it back together?

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Sooo…it’s Friday at the end of January…and I’m sitting here in The Old Vic, waiting on the cable guy. Once again our connection to the outside world has gone “intermittent”…and it seems to offend the cable company that I expect that for the rates I’m paying…the service needs to work when I need it.

I can’t leave…the cable company has scheduled my appointment for…I kid you not, “today”.

With nowhere to go…spotty internet service, and fried TV signal, I’m stuck twiddling my thumbs. It’s at this uncharacteristically idle moment that the full weight of what’s coming NEXT week hits me…see, the roofers are coming…and I’m terrified.

I’ve done roofs…rather a few of them actually…enough that I know (mostly) what I’m doing and just how much work it is. It was with that knowledge and experience in mind that I knew two things about this house the moment we bought her:
1) She was going to need a new roof someday.
2) I wasn’t going to be doing it.

The Old Vic, you see…is big. BIG big. The roof is steep, faceted, and complex. Various parts of the roof had been redone over the years, but there were some obvious condition issues. The eastern exposure for instance, was an absolute mess of various layers.

Thankfully, the roof did not leak when we purchased the house and we expected we could get 5 years or so out of the worst parts of it before repair or replacement was needed.

That number turned out to be just about right.

The NSA’s view of The Old Vic

Budget? We don’ need no stinkin’ budget…

When we completed the purchase we diligently set up a budget carefully putting money away for the various aspects of the remodel project and specifically, for a new roof 5 years or so out.

A week later the economic crisis caught up with me and I took significant a pay cut. The universe, of course, showed its perverse sense of humor…as that pay cut was almost to the penny, our entire remodel budget.

“Yikes!” we cried. But then we did what we always do in a crisis…we coped, figured out what was important, made a few guesses, pinned a few hopes, and then rearranged, re-prioritized, and carried on.

One of the hopes was that, perhaps with some minor repairs, we could get a few more years out of the worst parts of the roof.

Oh Hail

Severe weather and hail is not unusual in Texas. It happens pretty regularly. We look for damage, shrug, and go on about our business. In April 2011, large hail pounded our town. That weekend I looked at the roof, didn’t see anything remarkable, and when it rained a couple days later and nothing leaked, I promptly forgot about it. It turns out that as far as hail damaged roofs go, apparently I don’t know what to look for. That turns out to be important later.

April 2011 hail

Fast forward to August 2014. Since we bought The Old Vic we’ve endured lots of storms, more hail, wind, drought, and heavy rain with nothing but a small leak that I easily repaired. Slightly more than the 5 years we originally hoped to get out of the roof have passed. I’m uneasy about how much longer that eastern exposure will hold out…and then we get an August rain.

An August rain…or…let’s call that a TEXAS August rain. Eight inches of rain in under 24 hours. A regular deluge.

We had waterfalls in the house. The eastern exposure was lost…and there was something wrong behind the tower on the other end of the house. We caught what water we could and cleaned up/dried out the rest.

A quick climb and attempted repair on the eastern exposure and I knew…a new roof was now inevitable. Even tar couldn’t help…the shingles on that exposure were cracking apart and adding tar just pulled more of them to pieces.

The Eastern Exposure

Who?

It was time. We wanted to do this right…with a high-end shingle, complete redecking, addressing some structural issues, and adding ventilation.

I pulled together a list of roofers from the surrounding area via recommendations and ads and started calling.

There were 16 on the first list:
-Four didn’t return my calls.
-Eight made appointments and then didn’t show. Frankly, I think they drove by and said, “Oh HELL no!” and kept right on going.
-Four kept their appointments…of those:
—One just wanted to “Slap a layer of three-tab over it.”
—Three returned quotes. Only two wanted to talk about special attention and “Victorian Style” shingles. Only one of those was serious about it (the others kept trying to talk me out of it).

I had a couple more recommendations that I hadn’t called yet due to the distances involved even though they served our area, but I still did not have a bid I was happy with. I called.

The last appointment was Service First Roofing and Construction out of Lewisville, Texas.

I happened to be outside when they arrived. Brian McCarty popped out of his truck, introduced himself, smiled, and said, “I’ve got the perfect shingle for this house.”

Guess who got the job?

It wasn’t all that easy for Brian of course…I did my homework…they’ve been around a while with nary a complaint…and his quote came in the range of what I was expecting.

Back to the Hail

The next thing Brian said was basically, “You’ve got MAJOR hail damage on this roof. Have you filed an insurance claim yet?”

Parts of the roof were redone (probably in the 1990’s) and were in pretty good condition when we bought the house. Once Brian showed me what to look for, it was obvious the roof had been storm damaged.

I have insurance. My roof is covered for hail/wind damage. Why shouldn’t they cover at least a part of it?

“Not I!” said the pussycat

I called my insurance company. I had to wait a couple weeks for an adjuster. Then I had to wait a couple weeks for his report. I finally got a call…

“Well, the roof is totaled. Hail damage. No question at all. BUT…it wasn’t this last storm…or the one before that…or that other one…or the big one before that…but rather…it had to be THIS one back in 2011 when you didn’t have insurance.

Really?

Ah…but I did have insurance back in 2011. The company merged or spun off or something and that segment pulled out of the area. My policy shifted to the current company at that time.

I hung up the phone and called the previous company. They claimed of course that it must have been a more recent storm, but because I filed the claim, they would send an adjuster.

A couple more weeks for an adjuster. A couple more weeks for a report.

Turns out they use the same independent adjuster so really, NOW nobody could argue about what storm it was. I was covered!

Sort of. They still had a couple tricks up their sleeves.

First…they had slipped a little thing called ACV coverage into my policy. What this means is that you are not covered for replacement value…rather, you’re covered for whatever they declare the depreciated value of the roof to be. In my case, it was a mere fraction of the cost of the job.

They say ACV stands for Actual Cash Value…but what it really translates to is, “Ha sucka! You just keep paying all those premiums like a good little consumer. We ain’t paying! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Ah well. Some coverage is better than none, right?

One more trick…BOTH insurance companies said if I went ahead with the replacement before they check was cut I would likely forfeit any settlement. This sucks…the adjuster has seen it. My roof is totaled…and still I cant start? Ah well. At least it’s summer and I’m not taking too much damage…but then…even after they settled, my previous insurance holder would not issue the check…and summer was ending fast.

In desperation I called them, “I’m taking interior damage in every storm!”
“Well sir…” she said in a tone that totally negated any respect inherent in the term “sir”, “THAT would be the responsibility of your CURRENT insurance company.

I hung up without comment and called my current insurance company. When I told THEM what the other company said they said they’d take care of it. That did the trick. I had a check in my mailbox in 48 hours!

It was an itty-bitty check…a small fraction of what was needed…but at least I was cleared to proceed.

And now the weather

We needed a 5 day weather window to get this job started. Of course, once the checks were cut, contracts were signed, and everybody was ready, we never seemed to have a week without solid rain.

Good thing we’re having a drought. /sarcasm

Let’s get this party started!

Finally! The weather pattern shifted! Days of dry temperate weather were predicted! Everything was ready to go!

So…Friday before the “go for it” Monday. Waiting for the cable guy. Idle hands. Nothing to do but ponder. Queue the terrification level.

I had thought it was going to be easy to sit back and watch somebody else do the work. I’ve been in construction long enough to do so. But there was a key difference here; this was our house. It’s a HUGE, complex job.

I was nervous.

Scratch that.

I was utterly terrified.

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