The Trials and Lessons of Roofing

Over the summer of 2005, looking for some summer income I undertook a roofing project with one of my friends. I had some shingling experience so with confidence I signed up for the job expecting a fat paycheck and a rapid completion. The job which I undertook involved stripping about 2000 sq ft of asphalt and fiberglass shingles, pulling up the remaining nails, applying Grace Water and Ice Shield (bitchothane) and nailing a new set of shingles on. In theory it is quite simple and on a perfectly rectangular roof it may have been. The roof I was working on however had a large curve, with about a 15 foot radius instead of a 90 degree corner.

Now we get into the particulars of the material with which I was working. The asphalt shingles are about 36" and you don't see is that each tab or slat is part of a set of 3, with perforations half way up the shingle. The idea is that you get the incisions in the shingle to line up with the center of the tab below it. You start at the bottom working your way up the roof and on a rectangular roof, you can cover quite a bit of ground in no time at all.

Now imagine trying to maintain perfectly straight lines and consistent tab size while rounding a large corner. As we completed the rectangular portion of the roof, we came upon the corner and began to realize the difficulty of what we were facing. At first I tried to manufacture a single shape with a template that could be used for the "corner pieces", but being only 1/4 of a circle, this did not work very well. We lost the straightness of our lines and the product looked bad, so we ripped up almost a full days work and set out again. The solution we finally settled on was one which could not be expedited through the use of a template. We had to cut each shingle to fit. I would measure and notch the shingle, throw it to my partner, measure the next while he cut it to shape, I would then give him the next one nail the previous and get the dimensions on the next. Each cut and measurement had to be perfect, and each shingle had to abut the next perfectly so as not to let the water in. On the clock, the corner accounted for 50% of the project, and involved a lot of sweating and cursing. The weather was hot and the progress was slow. Day after day, I would wake up go to the roof and cut little angled shapes fitting them next to the last. If a section looks bad, we would have to rip it off and re cut each piece.

This small project taught me to suffer, it taught me to work along side someone in bitter science because of the sheer shittyness of a particular activity. Upon completion however I was able to look up at the roof with pride. In my product there was no sign of struggle or pain. The courses of shingles effortlessly wrapped around the corner, on to the end of the roof. The spacing was even and the lines did not waver. This product was the result of painful and infuriating back tracking. In this process I learned the value