Replacing Shingles

Once again I am replacing shingles on my garage roof. As far as the house roof goes, it needs completely replaced. I did get twenty years out of it, although I should have replaced it after about ten! The garage has been losing shingles every winter since they have been on. Always on the North side and always in the same general areas. Even though the winds that cause the damage are quartering out of the Southwest, the North side always takes the brunt of it all. I have never lost a shingle on the South side of the roof where the wind more or less gives a direct hit. I also had to replace a section of aluminum fascia that the wind took off at the peak of the garage. Five years ago my garage door buckled in two and I also lost all of my roof rafters during another one of the now "common" wind catastrophies that have occured here. I have included some pictures here to give anyone interested an idea of how to go about replacing shingles. Basically you will need just a hammer and a flat crow bar. You will have to break the seal of the next two shingles above the one that needs replaced. Both of these shingles have nails that are holding the remainder of the damaged shingle fast. Once you break the seals with the flat bar you will need to get under the shingles, again with the flat bar, and pry the nails up and then out until you can remove the upper half of the damaged piece. After that, you can slide your new shingle back into position and nail. You will also need to re-fasten the shingles that you just got done prying the nails out of. Try to do this when your shingles have cooled off. Too much heat will make the seal very sticky and hard to pry apart where-as the seal will break easier in the morning or evening hours. Once I get done replacing the damaged shingles I will "glue" them back down with a rubberized caulking sealant to help prevent another blow-off. In some of the pictures you can see where I had replaced this same area before and tried to re-seal with a clear silicone caulk. Must of been all I had at the time because I know better than that!

More Fast Forward

So what have I been doing for the last twenty years? I wish I had the proverbial dollar for every time someone asked me if I " got that house done yet? " question. In my last post, "Fast Forward", I thought I was going to get up to date on what I have done while renovating my home but only got as far as getting the roof done.

I will speed it up. Here we go. In a nutshell I have put a new roof on, removed outbuildings and porches and tree's and bushes. Filled cisterns, completely gutted all of the plaster and lathe walls and ceilings, hauled all of the plaster out to the lane to the woods, re-wired, insulated and drywalled. Tore out huge sections of walls and replaced, removed floors, replaced floors, straightened floors, tore off the old kitchen and replaced with a new one as well as a bedroom above the kitchen. Added a 150' wrap-around porch, new siding, and a 32' x 60' garage with a 1200 sq. ft. loft above. And I still have a long way to go!

Matter of fact, alot of the things that I have already done, namely the roof, are ready to be replaced again! Ever watch the movie "Money Pit". There is still so much more that has been done that I haven't written here but I am ready to start posting how my current projects are going so stay tuned to "Renovating Your Home".

Fast Forward

I guess I need to do some catching up on what has been accomplished so far in the last two decades! Initially, my first concerns were to clean up the place. The house was fine inside other than being run-down and full of animals. A squirrel, a raccoon, and a few ground hogs mainly. Otherwise there was no clutter. Just an empty old house that had been un-occupied for roughly five years. Just like any other building that is left alone, it was slowly dying.

I decided to remove all of the outbuildings since they were in need of much repair also. Two of the buildings were given away to neighbors. They hauled them off to their own properties and are still standing today. There were three separate porches that I demolished. They had all seen their better days. Trees that were splintered and dying, shrubbery growing next to the foundation, all were removed. Then started the real work, replacing the roof.

If I remember right, it took thirty square of shingles to do the main roof. Little did I know at the time how much more I would be putting on down the road. First I had to remove the old slate shingles with the exception of an area which had been replaced with asphalt shingles. Once the slate was removed I found nothing but a slatted roof, in other words, I needed to put on a solid sheathing in order to continue. This work took me through the winter and by the spring of 1989 my house was "dried" in.

Where to Start

The title sums it up. Although in this case it is somewhat misleading for I "started" on this home remodeling/renovation nearly twenty years ago. It still carries some weight though because there are so many projects to start, let alone finish, that it can be a bit overwhelming.

My intention with this blog is to begin a series of home remodeling projects, some large and some small, and to share them with people who have a similar interest and could possibly benefit from my experiences that I encounter with the renovation of this rather large country farmhouse situated in Northwest Ohio. Hopefully, week after week, I will continue this home renovation until the job is finally finished.

I bought this house somewhere in the summer of 1988. It cost me a whopping $10,000! The biggest mistake I made was the "I'll pay for it as I go" mentality. In other words, I took out a small loan, just enough to purchase the house with a little left over to start on some of the remodeling. That didn't last long.

To this day, twenty years later, I still have never taken out another loan for this house. Sure, it's paid for. A long time ago. But in retrospect I would have done it differently if I were to do it all over again.