New Flooring Going Down

Wednesday evening I started to lay the new flooring in the laundry room. You always start out by finding the center of your room, by taking measurements of the width and length of your room. Divide your measurements in half and that becomes your starting point. Lay out plumb lines in both directions and begin laying the first tile at the junction of these lines. All of your "self-stick" tile boxes will have instructions on the box, including how to cut your tiles when you get to the edges of you room.

By Thursday I had almost all of the room completed except for the tiles at the edge where I have to start the tedious part of cutting and fitting the final tiles that meet the walls. I do have to move the washing machine out so that I can tile underneath where it is sitting.  I will need to put the leveling feet onto pieces of cardboard so that when I move it I won't damage the surface of the new flooring. My goal is to get that done on Friday and then move it back into place.  I also want to get the edge tiles completed on the wall where the dryer will be placed so that will be done when the workers bring the dryer inside.

I would love it if I could begin painting out there this weekend but since the new sheetrocked wall is not textured yet and we won't be able to sheetrock the wall where the dryer is to go because of a problem there that didn't pass inspection, I think painting is going to have to be put off for a little bit. But who knows what might happen....... I am impulsive!

Trolls On The Roof !

Ok, they aren’t really trolls, but an entire army of roofers!  When they said they’d bring a “crew” I figured maybe 4 men at most.  Well there are at least 8 of them up there, but they are moving along so fast I’m having a hard time trying to count heads! Turns out I was pretty close; there are actually 9 of them.

They promptly arrived at 8AM and after moving my car out of the driveway so they could place their collection bin there, they had a group laying out tarps on the ground to catch the old shingles and nails beginning the process of removing shingles at the ridgeline.  For those of you who don’t know what the ridgeline is, it is the upper most top of your roof and then they work down to the edges.  They use tools that actually look like a farmer’s pitchfork and then a shorter hand version as well. With the pitchforks they are able to remove reasonably large patches of shingles all at once.  They work in teams, one loosens up the shingles with the pitchfork and the other gathers up these loosened shingles and takes them and dumps them into the collection bin.

While outside visiting with the roofing contractor and the general contractor, we learned that the decking on the house was 3/8ths of an inch whereas current standards are 7/16ths of inch plywood.  They have totally removed all old shingles from the house and are now working on the patio and garage roof. A true testimony to how well the old roof was installed is that the  house decking looks good, there is no water damage at all.  They were quite surprised to say the least. Now the patio roof might be another story.

By 9:30 the scraping sounds of the pitchforks had stopped and I begin to hear pounding. There’s no way I think that they can already be laying shingles, so I walk out onto the covered patio and gaze up to the roof top to see what is going on.  They are now in the process of either pounding in loosened nails or using tools to pop off nails that were holding on the old shingles in preparation for the new roofing felt paper and shingles. I learned that the name for these tools is called a roofing hatchet. One end of the blade has a chiseled hatchet end and the other looks like the business end of a hammer.

Next came the installation of a metal flashing strip on the small piece of wood that forms the edging of the roof decking. The proper name for this piece of wood is the drip edge and the metal strip is called the drip cap.  It is here that you often see rot and mold damage where water runs off the roof into your gutters and if gutters are not kept free of debri and water doesn’t run off properly, you will find this type of damage and in turn causes damage to your fascia board.

At 10:20 AM some of the workers were already laying the roofing felt paper on the front of the house. The paper is put on starting at the bottom edge of the roof and working up to the ridgeline or the peak of your roof.  .This paper is secured in place with staples and I am listening to the rhythmic sound of their staplers as they move across the roof. After the paper is laid, they mark plumb lines for the shingles.  Now the house is completely covered wit the roofing felt paper, as well as the patio and the garage roof. 

Time is now 10:57AM and I am hearing the thud thud thud of bundles of shingles being laid up on the roof.  They are strategically placing them in different areas of the roof to enable the roofers to easily open the bundles as they progress along.   I should start hearing nail guns going shortly.

Break Time 11:11 AM and for my cats this is an opportunity to come out from their hiding places under my bed to get up on the window ledges to see if they can figure out what all the noise was about!  Bradley, my parrot is actually handling this pretty well (he is the one I worried about the most) only letting out a few high pitched squawks when he heard them using the staplers directly above his head!

12:20 PM Lunch break is over and once again the sound of staplers is echoing above my head.  I also hear the sound of the air compressor being started up.  

One of the things that have to be watched carefully when using a pressurized nail gun to install roofing is that you need pressure gauges on both the compressor unit as well as on the nail gun unit. If too much pressure is used, then when the nails are shot into the shingle, it will go right through the shingle and you will get leakage at some point in time.

Shingles are now being laid!  There are certain areas that require being worked on first before all the straight run pieces are laid in place.  The “valleys” of your roof as well as around vent pipes and wind turbines.  Valleys should be covered with a special mineral-surfaced, roll roofing material .First, a wide strip of metal flashing is placed down the center of the valley, from the eaves to the top of the ridge and then this special roofing material is placed on top of it.

I watched as several of the men were putting the shingles up on the front of the house.  You start at the very lower edge of the house with your first row of shingles with what is referred to as a starter strip. Once the starter strips are in place and shingles are run up the exterior edges of the house they begin filling in the rest of the shingles. It is too difficult to try and explain all of this to you but I found this fantastic article   http://www.doityourself.com/stry/h2shingle which you can use as reference.

Expect The Unexpected

As in all projects, you have to always expect the unexpected.  In this case, they had already been forewarned about what we considered a “soft spot” in the patio roof.  I let them know the approximate location and advised them to be careful; I didn’t want anyone falling through! Sure enough, they found it and luckily no one fell through or was injured.  The decking was rotted and upon pulling it out, they found that an entire rafter was basically gone!  I truly had expected that they would find more roof damage than what they have found. Upon inspection of a piece of the wood that “was” the rafter, it appears to be water damage that caused the problem.  I was fearful it might have been termites but upon inspection of the wood, there were none in there. They did find some wasp nests though!

Off to the lumber yard to secure an 18 ft rafter board before they can continue roofing that section of the patio and garage.  In the meantime, the men are picking up debris from the yard and throwing it into the dumpster bin, while the other team continues roofing the backside of the house.  The front is entirely done and as I stand back and look at it from a distance across the street, I am so glad I chose the slate color that I did.  There is just a hint of green in with the gray and it is really pretty.  I have chosen a very dark charcoal gray paint for the eaves, soffit and fascia boards and will continue to have the light mint green as my accent color on my shutters, front door, the louvered panels on my patio, garage door and fencing. There is just enough of a hint of green in the shingles that this should be a very striking combination of colors.

New rafter is now in place along with the decking and they are finishing up that side of the roofing.

I went outside to check on the progress and they are pretty much done with things at least for today. It looks all that is left is to return my TV antenna to the roof and that is about it. Most of the yard has been picked up with just a few plastic wrappers that shingles came in and their personal tools that need to be gathered together.

It is now 5:30 PM and I am very impressed by the speed and professionalism at which they completed their work.  All tools have been picked up, trash removed, the yard checked thoroughly for fallen nails with a magnetic device and a courtesy knock on the door to say we are done and thank you for using our company. If you live in Oklahoma and need a good roofer, I would highly recommend them. They offer you state wide service on roofing, siding and windows.

Precision Exteriors
Robert Maurer, Owner
405-703-2955 or  405-877-703-2955

Another Step Towards Completion!

Well today marked the final day for the Red Hot men to be here!
What a great couple of guys and they do terrific work.
They popped in here about 10 AM or so this morning and were finished about 3 PM
Today they had to get back up into the hot, insulation itchy attic and run the wiring for the patio area and the garage work. Outlets needed to be installed and light fixtures as well as a new plug for the garage door opener unit. The sad part is, I was told that the electric opener unit itself is broken and needs to be either repaired or totally replaced and the door itself is hanging up on the track because of the center arm to the opener and the side hinges don’t want to turn the right way to make the bend to go up!

If we end up having thunderstorms tomorrow, which it looks like we may well have, I probably will have a crew of carpenters here doing some work. They would be able to work out on the patio, because it has a roof over it and install the outside siding that needs to go on the new wall they put in. They could come inside and cut the dryer vent hole and also the access panel area that has been decided upon for the closet where the water heater will go so that we can have proper access to the top of the tank if it needs repairing.

There is also a small area of sheetrock work that needs to still be done on the living room wall and then a repair area in the bathroom which got damaged during this remodeling.

As things stand now, it will probably be Saturday before the roofers can get here because of rain predictions; otherwise it will be Monday or Tuesday.

The new double pane windows should be here sometime early next week and we should be able to get them installed in a day if the weather holds out for us later on midweek.

Then there will be a small amount of gutter work to be done and painting and we will be finished!

I truly feel we will finish up long before our deadline date. These workers have been absolutely fantastic!

The General Contractor has several other jobs going at the same time, another here in Norman and at least one or two others up in Woodward. He is juggling crews around so that all of the subcontractors follow each other in logical order and there are no delays in work schedules. The unpredictable weather we have had this month is the only real hindrance. Much to everyone’s surprise we have had an abundance of thunderstorms this August and normally this is Oklahoma’s driest month!

I know most people don’t like remodeling jobs but I have to tell you, I have gone through several as well as build my own home in Texas and this has by far been the easiest one so far.

Some things that you will need to look at when choosing a contractor:
1. be sure that they are licensed and bonded in your state.
2. Ask for references of past work they have completed and contact the people about their workmanship and promptness in completing the job.
3. Find out if your contractor will be doing all the work themselves or if there will be subcontractors that you will also be working with. Make sure that all are licensed and bonded.
4. Find out if any special permits are needed in your city and if they will obtain them or if you will be required to obtain them.
5. Have a contract which you both will sign and have copies off, showing the work in detail as to what is to be done for the amount of money you will be spending. Have a starting date (work must start within X amount of days of signing this contract) and work must be completed within a given period of days. You may want to add a couple of extra “bad weather days” into the contract depending on the time of year the work is to be performed.

If you have a General Contractor with Sub-Contractors
1. be sure that any changes in the contract be they wanted by you or by the subcontractor, need to be approved and cleared through the General Contractor.

2. If for any reason you are not satisfied with the work of any of your sub-contractors, you need to contact the General Contractor to settle the problem.

I have made it a point to ask each of the subcontractors for one of their business cards which I will be keeping on file. I will also be writing a note, to Monte my General Contractor at the completion of this job discussing with him about each of his subcontractors and their work. At this point in time, I have already talked to him about Hawk Mechanical and Red Hot Electrical as being top notch in professionalism of personal manor and quality of work. I also told Monte that I have already written them up on my blog and his carpenters, roofers, gutter company and painters will also have promotion here also. I am looking forward to working with each and every crew because if what I have already seen is any indication of the types of people Monte has working for him, they will also be top notch!

Pardon My Dust!

Please excuse the mess we’ve got some major reconstruction going on here!
No not on the blog, at least not yet, here at my house!
Let me tell you about all the wonderful things that have been happening to me lately which is certainly a welcome change after all the worries of this last month with my children and their health issues.

I applied for a special program about two years ago through our City where they had federal money to assist people who are considered low income to assist them in bringing their homes up to building code. As you can imagine, there were many people who applied for this money and I finally made it to the top of the list.

The way that this money works, is you are allowed up to $25,000 for home repairs that will bring your home up to present building code. It is actually a lien note that is attached to your mortgage. You must be a homeowner and live in your home. It is actually a reducing lien so if you live in your home one year after work is completed and then sell (or die) 75% of the note needs to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of your home. If you live in your home two years and sell (or die) then 50% of the note is to be repaid and at three years 25%. At the end of the fourth year, 0% is to be repaid.

The people from the City, who are responsible for overseeing this money, have you complete paperwork and then schedule a walkthrough on your home to see what all needs to be done. They take pictures of the interior and exterior of your home and measurements of the entire house and every room, even draw up a diagram of your house.
They access everything that is needed to repair your home. Then back to the office, put a pencil to the costs and decide exactly what can and can’t be done with the money allocated.

You then have another meeting with the City people to determine exactly what is to be done. They will also give you a list of alternative repairs that can be included in case there is enough money left.

Then everything goes to a bidding process with general contractors with a close date for the bids and once all are in, a contractor is selected. Once this happens you return to sign a contract with that General Contractor and the City and work must commence within 5 days of signing and the entire work has to be completed within 42 days. That means your General Contractor must be very diligent in scheduling his crews so they will coordinate together to get the work done in a timely fashion.

Work has begun here and I will take you on our journey as we complete this process.