Adventures in Roofing in the Rain, Part Deux

Ok, so we had some leaks Tuesday night. My daughter woke me at 5am with a "My room is raining, Mom."

This is not fun news at 5am.

Actually, rain had gotten under the tarp and came down her light fixture. She just happened to have her fan on and it sprayed her. Wasn't actually coming through the ceiling.

We did get some drips from the vent stacks and such, but nothing bad.

Hubby took the tarps off when the forecast gave us 4-5 hours rain free. We were then supposed to get rain around 6 or 7pm.

He left the tarps off for an hour or so to make sure they were sufficiently dry and installed the ice and water barrier. This has an adhesive on the bottom, which has to bond to the roof decking.

There it shows mostly applied around the edge of the roof. It looks like a first row of roofing felt. This is where they were when I got home from work.

And I, like a good little wife, got inside and changed and up on the roof. Although with a little less pep than the day before. I didn't sleep after the 5am raining ceiling wake up.

We had an hour and a half or so and I wasn't worried about the rain. The felt was going down fast and they nailed them in with these.

They seal the hole so that no water can follow it's path like with 'naked' staples.

Ours were blue, though.

It wasn't hard work, you just roll it out, cut it, match up the lines and nail in line.

But the clouds were rolling in and I started to realize that it was actually taking longer than I originally thought.

Not again!

We hurried and finished the back side of the roof and came around to do the front side. After the first row was nailed down, the rain started. Except, this wasn't nice warm rain. This was chilly, windy rain.

This wasn't fun, silly, I-can't-believe-we-got-caught-in-the-rain roofing. This was chilly, we're-tired-and-our-hands-are-shaking roofing. It lightened up enough to finish the second side and we hurried to run one along the ridge, to cap it off. We had to leave the ends not nailed down so that when we came up the hip on the side, we could take the cap over it.

The box of nails was falling apart and I had to hop down the ladder and into the house for a plastic bag. The wind was blowing and we were afraid we'd lose the rolls of roofing felt. We were going as fast as we could. And shaking as we went.

Then it started to hail. It hit me like little BB's.

It was almost impossible to continue with the cold and the shaking and I wanted to stop. I wasn't all tough like the night before. I was much more uncomfortable.

Then the ladder fell.

And the bag of nails got a hole in it.

We had to hold the bag with one hand, to hold the hole shut and still nails fell out.

We were almost done with this side.

Hubby decided to throw the tarp over the last hip, because it was over the garage and the tarp could hold until morning.

We cut the last few pieces and tried to cap the ridges to seal it well. I was shaking so hard, I wasn't sure I could nail many more in.

I went to get the tarp while they finished the last bit. I went to the side of the roof where the dumpster was and edged close. Then slung my feet over and gently stepped on the side of the dumpster. It was wet and I had to be careful not to slip.

Don't try this at home.

Then I found the bars on the side of the dumpster and was able to climb down and get the ladder upright for the guys. I tried to pull the tarp up the ladder, but had to have help because it was so heavy. We spread it over the last hip and put a few small nails in that we could replace with covered ones in the morning and went inside.

It took me forever to warm up.

But the house was warm and dry this morning and we shouldn't have rain for the next 4 days. The roofer can start roofing tomorrow and all will be well.