New Roof!

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Leaks in several rooms over a year told me it was time...
I had new shingles put on and I'm still trying to understand the pattern they used. At first I was sort of upset because I thought they had used dimensional shingles, when I asked for regular, but now I see it's regular shingles, but they cut some in smaller pieces and layed them over the join areas. It looks good, I think, and hopefully will be more waterproof than normal. Seems like alot of work though.
It only took MG Builders two days to do this. A team of 10 stripped the old roof in a day, then 2 guys and a nailgun did the new in another day.

Plumbing problems continue

Ok, this is getting ridiculous...now I've paid $300 to two different plumbers, and had my bathroom sink cabinet ruined, all to not even fix any problem. I called the first plumbers (Cummings plumbing) to see why my hot water pressure was low on one side of the house. They could not fix it but they mucked around, incompetently, and made a huge mess (see my previous post!) They cleaned up their mess, and even returned to fix a leak they caused in my hot water heater, but they left one more leak, a very slow one under the bathroom sink. It was too slow to detect until it had already fully soaked the cabinet base and ruined it. This leak was in the supply shutoff valve which I could not turn so I called another plumber (Spartan). This plumber was pleasant enough but said we had to remove the sink to do the work, and then he didn't re-attach the sink afterwards to verify that it now didn't leak. Of course when I re-attached it, it did leak. Fortunately, this was a leak I could fix with a new supply hose.

And now I think the ordeal is over!! Except for getting a new sink cabinet, which I don't really want to face yet.

If your hot water temp is super hot....

You might want to tell the plumbers if they have to come work on your pipes. That way they might not let fixtures pop off, spraying them and everything else with water too hot for them to turn off. This happened at my house today and one plumber got a pretty good dose of near scalding water on his face, and then the water sprayed full force onto my bathroom wallpaper for several minutes as they tried to figure out how to turn off the main supply. First the one guy went out in the street looking for the water main, but couldn't find it. Meanwhile I tried to turn off the hot water but couldn't do it. Finally the plumber came back in an turned off the hot water line. By then my whole hall and one closet was flooded. By a miracle, the bathroom wallpaper seems to have dried off and isn't bubbling. The plumber said it would probably be ok being vinyl wallpaper...but it seemed pretty unlikely to me at the time.
And the worst of it, they couldn't fix the water pressure problem I called them for, and they had to come back 3 hours later because the hot water heater was trickling from its overflow valve, which apparently had gotten sediments in it as a result of the heater being almost totally...

Shelby says:

"What a nightmare! Plumbing stinks. I have actually been using the instant hot water heater and it working great and it does require constant heating! You should check them out."

tucsonguy says:

"Agreed, I am looking into the instant heaters too."

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New Roof Coating

After experiencing leaks in 4 different rooms over the past 2 years I finally decided it's time for major roof work. First step: coat the flat parts! The Ace hardware guy convinced me to use GacoRoof silicone roof coating which, supposedly, lasts for 50 years, and also fills small cracks, unlike the standard coatings.

Anyway I hope this is true because I used it! I had about 1100 sqft to cover, and with their coverage estimate of 100 sqft per gallon, and the requirement of two coats, this meant 22 gallons. At $50/gallon, it was about $1100.

First I rented a power cleaner for 3 hours and sprayed off the roof. I found that you have to hold the nozzle about 6 inches or less from the surface, and approximately horizontal, for it to be effective. This isn't so easy because the pressure makes the hose twist.

After that it was just straightforward work, putting down 2 coats over two days. I found their coverage estimate pretty accurate (there were 3 gallons left over) and I had one accident on the ladder which convinced me to let some else do my roofing work in the future!

Shelby says:

"I have used a sealant called CoolSeel and also Sealoflex. They both last for about 5 years. The cool seal is white though and it is amazing. We hung out on our roof at Folly Beach all the time and the roof was always cool even in 100 degree Charleston summer heat!! It truly is cool seal, it reflected the sun so well it was scary. I would highly reccommend it especially... "

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Starting my blog!

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Here's a picture of a party I had for the school German club. We made a German holiday beverage called Feuerzangenbowle, which is wine boiled with spices and with flaming sugar dripped into it. We also watched an old German movie of the same name, projected onto the wall.

It was a great time!

Shelby says:

"That sounds like fun! How did it taste? I bet it looked something like this"

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