A house up the street is finally getting a new roof. That’s not unusual. I think most of the houses near me (including mine) have gotten a new roof in the past three years.
What did catch my eye was the pile of shingles in the driveway. Typically a big truck with a big arm pulls into the driveway and lifts piles of shingles onto the ridge line of the house. Once in a while roofers will have a ladder lift that raises two or three bundles to the workers up on the roof.
But all these guys had was a ladder against the side of the house. From what I could tell they were going to carry each fifty-pound bundle up the old fashioned way, one at a time. That’s got to be at least sixty times up and down the ladder. That’s a lot of work just getting the shingles up there.
Most of the roofing work is done by companies who bring in a crew of four to five, able to get the whole thing done in a day and a half. From what I could tell, there were only a couple of guys working this job. All the guys and gals who do roofs are tough and hard workers. Plus it’s the time of the year where it gets pretty hot up there in the middle of the day.
I’ve only ever worked on one roof. We put a second layer of shingles on the church in Connecticut about thirty-five years ago. We didn’t have a compressor and nail guns, just hammers and roofing nails. It took a whole day, but we got it done. Bonus prize: no one fell off the roof.
I wonder how many years the average worker is up there on roofs? I don’t see many older people up there. After a while, I’ll bet younger workers take the place of the more experienced roofers whose backs and knees just can’t take it any more. I searched on the average length of a roofing career, and got mixed answers. Some said no sane person would do it for more than six months. Others have done it for thirty years or more.
I don’t go up on my roof unless I absolutely have to, usually to sweep pine needles that accumulate in certain places. I do a lot better working on the ground.
Waite for it... 