Rooferama Drama

Houston, we have our first semi-big home repair situation on our hands.

Really, I’m lucky for this being the first “issue” I’ve had to deal with. Also, we’re lucky we weren’t in tornado alley – we know it’s been a rough week for many parts of the country. We didn’t get anything torrential in Rochester, just wind. The kind of wind that makes you stay inside all day with the blinds closed, watching 7 episodes of Parenthood a mere 24 hours before your DVR is about to be replaced for a newer model. The kind of wind that mother nature wedges beneath the plywood and tar paper on the garage roof and…

Whoop, there she is. That’s not good.

Unfortunately, it’s not just a situation of the tar paper tearing up. When it loosened, it propelled two of the tiles across the yard.

OK, not “across the yard,” so much as directly down onto one of my 36-dolla, barely rooted Mountain Laurel plants that I just dropped into the earth 4.5 months ago. Crunch. But better on it than on the dog though. Scary, because those tiles are almost as heavy as cinder blocks.

It may still have been blowing 50+ mph winds, but we had to act fast to make temporary repairs before the rain and snow started to fall. And by “we,” I mean manly Pete, who was much braver about getting on the roof in those conditions to hammer what seemed like 500 roofing nails into place while I held the ladder in place and clung to the rafters with all of my upper body strength.

More issues: We always knew that the back of the garage needed some help, and we did a bunch of tarring patchwork last spring to try and get us through a few more years, but now it’s worse than just a few drippy spots; one of the roof joists was quickly rotting, and even worse, the plywood resting on the joist on the back 2-3 feet of the garage is obliterated. Seems that this is the unfortunate consequence of a poorly placed plywood seam and poorly tarred roof.

We shall add it to the list and hop on it this springtime. You know, when we can be outside dealing with it happily in t-shirts and sunblock. Hopefully it will hold tight for a few more months and we won’t be left with this dramatic scene again:

I don’t know what the extent of the repairs will be, we’re kind of thinking it’d be a great opportunity to fix the trouble spots, reinforce the joists, and maybe totally shingle the roof to match the house. I’ll be doing some research in materials, and maybe checking in with insurance to see what can be done, our initial guess is that considering the cost of the deductible, they’re not going to be saving us much money.

Tips* welcome.

*especially when tips mean cash money.