Roofing Woes

Our poor little house...

Back in October we developed a leak in the ceiling of our garage. We had the insurance adjuster come out and he determined that we had significant hail damage, from a nasty storm that had blown through earlier in the year. He said that we would need to have our entire roof replaced. So I did my homework and scheduled an estimate with what I perceived to be a competent and well respected company. I noticed on the estimate that they were charging about $900 more than what my insurance company was paying. I asked if they would be willing to negotiate on the price of the job. My estimate guy, Bill, swore that the insurance company had mis-measured the roof and that it was actually a bigger job, and that was why the price was different. Long story short, Bill went back in forth with the insurance company for two and a half months arguing the size of our roof. (Note my extreme patience giving this idiot two and a half months to do this!) In the end he came out and remeasured our roof again and it was determined that the insurance company's estimate had been right all along. So, basically at this point I'm out of time, patience, and brain cells with Bill the Bonehead and finally got the chutzpah to fire him.

So I started back at square one. I did my homework and found another company. (Although, at this point it seems to me checking with the Better Business Bureau and checking references still does not protect you from idiots.) So I have a new guy out, Tom. He immediately seems more knowledgeable than the first guy, but I'm a little weirded out that he hung around our house for two hours at the original estimate. Around this time, I have roofing mental breakdown after having smiled at and been polite with Longwinded Tom for what seemed like forever. I turn the whole thing over to Justin, stating I can't handle one more ounce of stress with this stupid roof. Tom says he'll take care of everything for us and in a timely manner. Less than a week later we are in business, the roofers show up at 7:20 am and start ripping the shingles off our roof. Not more than 30-45 minutes in to it, the skies open up and it starts to rain. (We have been in a drought, ironic isn't it that the one day I'm without a roof, it rains all day.) So the roofers have to abandon their post and leave us with a gigantic, sad, smurf-blue tarp covering our house. Oh well, you can't control the rain right? What I discovered a few hours later though, is that you can control how well you cover an exposed roof. I was sitting on my bed checking my e-mail when Maryn runs into my room sobbing "Mommy, we have a big problem! My ceiling is crying by my window!" I run upstairs and find that water is running out of the vents in both of the girls rooms. At this point any humor in me has totally, 100% left my body. I am ticked. We also had more water gushing out of the ceiling in the garage. We counted fourteen water spots on the ceilings in the girls rooms and closet and soaking wet carpet under the drips.

Lovely isn't it? Oh this is just the beginning.
Ahh, the garage ceiling, looks great don't you think?

I don't know about you, but I think all the heavy equipment only adds to the rooms decor.

Tom came over at 7:30 at night to set up industrial drying equipment to help get the air circulating. Knowing I was trying to get the kids to bed he swore he would only be there for 10 minutes. An hour and a half later, two cranky kids, one frazzled mom, mud stains on my carpet, crap blown from the fans all over Brynna's room and in our faces (from a previous job, Brynnie said "Look Mom, it's snowing!", uh no, insulation and debris from other people's houses is not snow!) and a blown fuse later they were up and running. Thankfully, the roofing company was really apologetic and is paying for all the drying, treating, repainting, and carpet cleaning. But it was still just a nightmare. As I type there are the sounds of progress on the roof, as the roofing team is finishing what the weather would not allow to be done yesterday. Luckily, Brynna helped me find my smile again this morning. As I was getting her dressed she discovered that industrial strength blowers make for great impromptu 'Vogue' moments. Here's our little ham releasing her inner supermodel...Zoolander would be proud!