I booked today off as annual leave, only to find out later that the roofers were coming today.
They arrived at 7:30 and busied themselves with all kinds of things like booming the shingles off the flatbed. I busied myself with taking a few pictures, learning a little roofing jargon (like ‘booming the shingles off the flatbed’) and being nice and friendly to the roofing crew so they’d like me and want to do a good job.
I know, that’s weird. It probably doesn’t even work that way. But they were being nice and friendly too, probably so I wouldn’t complain if they didn’t do a good job.
Before they could get started, we had a little conversation about where to park the trailer. It went like this:
Stephane: Can we park the trailer in your front yard? It would make things so much easier for us.
Me: Will it damage my lawn?
The Voice in My Head: OF COURSE IT WILL DAMAGE THE LAWN. REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU LET THE MOVING TRUCK PARK ON THE LAWN?
Stephane: Oh no, it won’t damage your lawn. It might sink a little bit, but it’s not like you’d have two-foot-deep ruts in your lawn.
The Voice in My Head: SAY NO! SAY NO!
Me: Yes, if it will make things easier for you, you can park on the lawn.
Stephane: Thank you.
The Voice in My Head: ARGH!
Me: Shut up.
Stephane: Excuse me?
Me: Oh, nothing. I was just talking to myself.
Then they started to back the trailer up onto the lawn and one of the tires was on my neighbour’s lawn – it’s a row house, and the lawns are pretty narrow. So I told them they couldn’t do that, because deep down I knew the voice in my head was right, there would be damage, and I couldn’t let them damage my neighbour’s lawn. So they moved all the materials by hand from the middle of my lawn to the edge, and squeezed the whole trailer onto my little bit of lawn. (I should have asked them to park it on the goutweed, as part of my Invasive Weed Eradication Program.)
Then they got set up and climbed the ladder and the noise began. I could never handle living in the midst of renovations, because I get stressed by this kind of thing, even when it’s up on the roof and not in the house. I’d like to say I’m the kind of person who rolls up her sleeves and grabs a hammer, but the awful truth is I don’t even like it when other people do that kind of thing around me. At 10:30 I just couldn’t handle it anymore and I went to work. On my day off.
I got home around 4:45, hoping against hope that they’d be gone, but they weren’t. I went down to the basement and sat in a corner, rocking back and forth and mumbling to myself. (Okay, that’s not true, I’m not quite that bad. I went straight to my computer and played a nice soothing game of Scrabble.)
Finally, around 6:00 they left and I went out to see how it looked. Maybe it’s just me, but does my new roof look a little not-quite-right to you? Like it’s not lying flat in places? How’s a person supposed to be able to tell if they got a good roof job or not? Can you tell by looking, or do you just sit around and wait to see if it leaks?
I would complain to the supervisor or owner of the company about the graffiti all over the roof. But seriously, if you are not sure, call the bosses and have them come over and look. If you still aren’t sure, have an inspector look at it. It would probably only cost $50 or $60 to have Amerispec or someone take a quick look and let you know if it was done properly.
Shingles might not all look flat and smooth until they’ve had a bit of sun and have had time to adjust. They should only take a day or two at most during this season to come around and look uniform with the others.
Cheers,
Rob