Roofing

It turns out its not that hard.  My standard line for some time now with reference to putting metal roofing on my new shop has been “how hard can it be?”.  I’ve seen some incredible idiots doing carpentry – it seemed to me that I could certainly do anything that some of them were capable of. 

Last week I finally got around to ordering the metal and ran smack into the first gotcha.  They would have happily cut my sheets to length out of stock but it would have been a significant premium ($350 on a $1900 order).  So I opted to wait a week in order to allow them to order cut to length sheets from their supplier.  My big worry was that it would snow in the interim but – so far anyway – it hasn’t.  This morning I left for Melfort later than I would have preferred but early enough to get back here for a late lunch.  I don’t think I was in Mel-View’s yard for a total of 20 minutes – they were really efficient.   I rationalized my later departure as a safety measure – less chance of nailing a moose if I wasn’t travelling at daybreak.

The roof sheets just barely fit inside the trailer but they did fit.  I’ll have to come up with a new plan when I bring the wall sheets home but that problem won’t arise until at least next fall.

Now I’m about half done putting the tin on the south side of the roof.  It goes relatively quickly but its hard work.  Standing on the roof always make my knees hurt and standing on the metal is even harder.  Its no big challenge to stand on but when I need to sit in order to get close to the eave its too slippery so I have to twist my feet under me to keep from sliding off.  My building isn’t even close to square which makes it challenging to end up with a finished job that looks good.  The sheets are heavier than I expected – I was worried about walking on them and that clearly isn’t a problem but handling them gets tiresome.

The farther away you get the better it looks. Or as neighbour Louie said “It looks good from far but its far from good.”

We’ve been watching hurricane Patricia closely because we know that area of Mexico really well.  Right now it looks like the hurricane will make landfall just north of Manzanillo in the Barra de Navidad or Boca Beach neighbourhood.  We haven’t been there for several years but we have spent several winters in that area.  If I had to pick a stretch of Pacific coast where a hurricane could hit without doing massive damage that would definitely be the spot.  North of Puerto Vallarta is heavily built up and Manzanillo is built up but the stretch between P.V. and Manzanillo is relatively unpopulated jungle.  There’s a few little coastal fishing villages but nothing like what there is between P.V. and Mazatlan.  We’ve also been in touch with Karla.  She’s pretty cute – she has been referring to herself as our reporter in Guadalajara. 

That’s the beach at La Manzanilla about 12 years ago now.  Right now it looks like this will be about where the centre of hurricane Patricia hits the coast.