Topped off

Remember the hail storm we had back in June?

Well, trust me. We had one. And it was pretty significant, dropping hailstones about the size of golf balls. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, and I'm an old guy.

The storm caused considerable damage. Both of our cars were peppered with the stuff and had to be repaired for thousands of dollars of dent damage.

Fortunately, our insurance paid for everything except the $100 deductible, and both of our cars look great. Kim got her car back about a month ago, and I got mine back about two weeks ago.

But then there was the roof on our house...

We had the roof put on about 19 years ago, shortly after we moved in, but there was no way it was going to survive the pelting it received from this storm. It was due up for a new one. I had four roofing companies look at it before we decided on Wimmer Siding Windows and Roofing. And, once again, our insurance came through.

But we had to wait about a month or so before Wimmer could pencil us in. That's how busy they were.

In the meantime, of the nine houses on our block, five of them already had new roofs installed. It was like we were living in a new construction site. We'd even reached the point of paranoia worrying about roofing nails all over the place. We figured it would be a minor miracle if we could get through the summer without a flat tire.

Anyway, the roofing crew arrived last Tuesday, happily hammering away, and within 30 hours, we had our new roof.

Here's a photo essay about the process:

1. The house before the crew arrives.

2. The six-man crew begins work early in the morning.

3. More shingles come flying off the front of the house.

4. Roof underlayments go up. Progress.

5. The shingles go up. Starting to look like something now.

6. Here is the finished roof. Looks good.

These are the hailstones that caused all the trouble in June.

 

So now we have a new roof. We feel pretty safe, secure and dry at this point, although time will tell.

The crew cleaned up after itself when the job was done, carting off old shingles and using magnets to pick up most of the loose roofing nails. But there will always be loose roofing nails. We did our own cleanup afterwards with borrowed magnets and I found 20 more nails, including five in the street.

So I suspect I'll be paranoid for at least a year. But at least I'll be dry.