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Friday, December 31, 2010

Good Bye 2010

Everybody knows that you need to start practicing writing 2011, especially on checks, right now. Just like that new medicine cabinet in your new home almost gets ripped out of the wall by everyone grabbing the wrong side, so does everything else in your life. So here's my roof tips to keep up this year:
1) Keep your gutters, valleys, and back of your chimney free of debris.
2) Walk around your home one a month and visually inspect the perimeter of the foundation, eaves, and ground. Make sure you have positive drainage away from the house or those little lakes might mess up your foundation. Look for rotting wood or peeling paint.
3) Look in your attic once a month and look at the flue pipes, wiring, and deck. Check for leaks, deadly gas fumes, and potential fires.
4) Call us just before winter to look for backed out nails and a chimney inspection. You might have us look in the attic.
5) Do the roof frost inspection I talked about before. Keyword in the search bar is "frost."
6) Read my blog.
7) Hug your kids more in 2011.

We hope you've learned something and have chuckled a little, but not too much, because you might be laughing at me. A smile will do.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

How To Measure a Roof

Everybody knows that when roofers die they are reincarnated as architects. The deep seated emotion of revenge has resulted in a steady climb of complexity in roof design while basic math skills have plummeted so far that we need immigrants from third world countries to figure out our stuff.

Take for example computers. When you call the help center you never hear a Southern or Brooklyn accent. If you ask them what time it is they will give you the weirdest responses and sometimes even get the date wrong. They used to come over here but now they just stay home an globally commute from home.

Despite all this we are still trying to measure roofs ourselves but are doing a disgustingly bad job of it. Back in the day (I really don't get this colloquialism but it seemed to be an appropriate time to expound it) we painstakingly (looks German) used step by step methods to accurately decipher how much of everything we needed. But then some yokel over at State Farm came up with the simplistic 10% or 15% waste catch all system that leaves a lot to be desired. Yet they measure in inches and we can't buy roofing that way.

Why you might ask? Why to screw everybody a little at a time. Just like they can't remember that a few years ago a 10% on 10% general contracting fee was 21% and claim it was always 10% plus 10%, resulting in a 1% loss (20%). With these Enron accounting practices applied to billions, you might see how it can add up.

Now I'm not jumping on State Farm. They're really a great bunch and do a very professional job. Really. And everybody ran with this new system and again claim that is the way it always was. Sounds Orwellian to me.
Here's the story du jour: I tell this green adjuster that his math is off. The house is very cut up and there is more ridge on the house than 15% above surface area. It's somewhere deep in the Delta area around Star Date 1987. I finally grow tired of arguing with this simplistic automaton and tell him that I am a little more advanced than most roofers (and adjusters for that matter) in math. He boasts that he had a math degree from North Texas State. I responded "a state school, huh?"

That conversation ended. We roofed the house, saved our invoices, and then went beyond the pale. I sent a multi colored series of sketches breaking the roof into sections and showing how the theoretical pyramid could be extrapolated from this rather unusual three dimensional polygon. I think if it had been 5% more cut up we could have solves some time/space continuum problems and solved world hunger, which every attempt up until now has only caused more hunger. Conundrums are not a musical instruments.

This meat head with his degree was from State Farm but I beat him the old fashioned way. I was right. I also used a little General Sun "Art of War" tactics. I waited for him to be reassigned into another quadrant and then I attacked. Phasers at full strength. Insurance companies hate it when you roof without an agreement on price. They don't want to "adjust" after you have a go. But sometimes matters come up, like shape, size, volume.

Now to the point. Measuring is not an art. It is a science. There are several ways to measure though. Counter intuitively the most accurate is from the ground using a pitch factor. Most roofers, if they still measure, measure from the roof and ignore the eccentricities. They measure a three dimensional object using two dimensional tools. As they lob off sections with rafter times length methods, they ignore the raided areas inside the valleys. I know words fail me here so just trust me.

If you measure the High Noon shadow, or footprint of the roof, that is the foundation plus overhang, and multiply that flat area by a pitch multiplier, you'll have the surface area. Now the insurance companies want to add a flat tax of 10% or 15% whether the house has ten feet of valley or 200 feet. Hip house receive the larger amount of 15% because hip is cool. Gables are factored at 10%. Yet the same floor plan may have different roof cuts creating greater need for valley, hip, and ridge usage.

If you are attempting to measure for the purposes of a very expensive roof material, the simple way is disastrous. Not having enough ridge might leave the roof incomplete because the materials are in another galaxy. That's when you add the ridge linearly, calculate the amount of waste for valleys, hips, and rakes with however much will be lost in the cutting. Tile and stone coated steel roofers measure the rafter length and divide the number of courses it will take, including the fraction of a course at the top as a whole, because we can't buy fractions of courses.

If you are roofing a small short mansard, the ratio of starter to rafter length will be all out of proportion. A hundred foot rafter need less starter in terms of percentage than a roof with only one course of roofing. Half the roof is starter (the blind shingle underneath the first row that keeps the water out of it's end joints).

Nowadays we often measure from the sky. We don't let someone else do it for us like a lot of companies do. We still need to go out there and look around so we can do it cheaper by taking a few measurements to give us a ratio with the pixel count. Then we measure and add pitch factors.

I wonder is some Dallas roofs are measured from India or China yet? So sad many can't even do that for themselves anymore and have to outsource measuring.

This is boring stuff so I'm going to quit now. Later I'll go through measuring step by step.

www.jonwrightroofing.com

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Jon Wright Roofing's First Annual Awards Ceremony.

The Year in Review, from a roofer's eyes.
No hail storms to speak of in the Metroplex but that was okay. That gives me time to write my first Jon Wright Person of the Year Awards.

The only nominee for that person, which also captured Woman of the Year, is Elizabeth Edwards. She died with class unmatched except for my Uncle Gene, a professor at the university of Dallas. His sister, my aunt, died when she fell off a toilet. They were both funny and bright and now dead, like we all will be. But Elizabeth Edwards turned shame into grace, something few are able to do. The worst part, something I read on Real Clear Politics that made me cry like I was watching Terms of Endearment, was that she would die knowing that her children would always be around the other woman because of their curiosity for their half sister.

I'm sure Senator Edwards is sorry. He got caught. He got caught lying.

The 2010 roof salesman of the year is Ryan Scott. No comment necessary.

The 2010 supplier of the year is Southern Shingles. Despite the fact we kept getting new sales people all the time, they held onto our business.

The 2010 Roofing related business award goes to Angie's List, for all the nice people we met and did business with, including our very nice contact there, Amanda McDonald.

The 2010 Manufacturer Rep of the Year is Jo Anderson, a person whose shoes cannot be filled, even though the runner ups, Mike Harrison and Gary Keith from Certainteed want to.

Now, for the award everyone has been waiting for...the envelope please (I can't believe Megan Fox is handing it to me). What do you mean it's Sonia Sotomayor? The winner of the best customer for Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, Windows, and Solar Panels is...drum roll.... all ya'll that paid your bill and made comments on Google, Angie's List, and other social medium.

Thank you for attending the awards ceremony

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Frost on the Roof Tells Me a Lot

Mr. Frost is here again and for forensic roofers like me he has a lot to say. The melt patterns are like reading tea leaves, only more accurate.
Let it Snow right click and listen too in a different window.

A block of roof that melts before the others tells me that the area has either a cathedral ceiling or little, if any, insulation. The lack of air space between the ceiling and the deck on cathedral ceilings allows the heat to escape more quickly there.

Notice how the garage area stays frosted and the rest of the house roof thaws. Warm attics also show the outline of the rafters underneath the roof deck as the escaping heat, going as heat does to where heat isn't, melts the frost. The heat is thawing the rafters too but the have more mass to absorb the heat and keep the deck above them frosty. Plus heat wants to go up.

A well insulated attic floor will keep the heat in the home better making the roof thaw evenly. Homes that let heat escape more rapidly than others will keep ice on the overhangs but not over the living area. This leaves a border of frost on the outside edges of the living area. The overhang, porch, and garage keep ice on them longer.

Now comes the ice or snow torrent and you are under insulated. Weeee, we now have leaks inside the "warm wall." The ice builds up on the overhang but melts over the heated areas and you have a back up of water that goes under the shingles.

Shingles count on gravity, which turns water from one course of shingles onto the one below it until it reaches the edge or the ice dam. Smicsh dam, ice damn. Can be a flood. Wouldn't happen if you had used the leak protector. This caped crusader acts as a leak barrier for those moments when gravity lets you down.

Up north these products must be used: by code of ethics. But here in Dallas it'll never snow a foot. Never I tell you. Never, ever, nada, nunca, preposterous. That's like saying Atlanta Christmas snow. What an oxymoron. Up north, land of snow birds and tongues stuck to poles. I don't mean Slavic types but slobbering slobs. I am of Polish descent anyway. At least it is part of my 57 flavors. Yet despite temptation I've never licked a frozen pole. No paramedics for me, as we say, "nyet."

Back up on the roof the heat is escaping. Oh no! Plug the turbines. Hurry.

Now do you do this. It is forbidden and foolish. If you lived by the ocean and plug your turbines you might miss the the high hopes hailla ball. Plus your decking will rot and why you sing about the good things and the sun that lights the day, your roof will come down like a Led Zepplin.

Think about it. The heat has escaped and is now melting the ice on the roof. Do you think plugging those holes will do more than just make the ice melt faster. There will be so much condensation in your attic that icicles may form that later drop and put holes all over your ceiling.

YOU MUST VENTILATE IN THE WINTER.

Remember that ventilation was invented by northern pain companies in the 1920's because their paint would peel off the homes in the winter.

Happy New Year.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Roofers and Christmas

While reading listen to this:
I Believe in Father Christmas (be sure to right click and open in a new tab)

I Believe in Father Christmas by one of my favorite singers

For many of our Christmas traditions you need to thank roofers.

Don't believe me? Have I lied to you before? Do I need to prove it?

Just how does Santa get into your home? First he lands on the roof. If there is no snow you'll need to call Jon Wright Roofing to fix the broken shingles unless you bought an impact resistant class IV roof.

If the sleigh landing is cushioned by snow you better hope the decking is in good shape because if Santa falls through a dwarf attorney will send you notice.

Then there is the problem with the lights. You know that you nailed them into the roof or tore up the edge by sticking something under the shingles.

If you didn't keep the mortar cap in good shape the bricks might be loose and, with old Fat Nicholas trying to break and enter, there might be some bricks dislodged.

Well there it is. We only protect the pagan rituals. The real part of Christmas, the part of which it is truly about, can only be protected by you by giving Jesus what he really wants for christmas, you.
Here's a little present:

Peanuts Christmas

Go Cowboys! Maybe next year. If Jerry would just work on the business end and let the coaches do their job they might go somewhere.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Roofers and Charity

"The season of giving" is another name for this time of year. We've always given a little to the Shriner and other groups but we've looked to help in other ways. We tried getting with Habitat for Humanity when Kimberly Van Excel came by but it was difficult. We just wanted to donate some leftover material and donate some time. It was a slow year without any local storms and we're not storm chasers. We're professionals.

Down to Habitat's local office we went to give away some material and labor but management wanted us to bid full roofs. They had grant money that needed to be spent on the particular homes we had looked at that, in my humble opinion, did not need replacing. They needed minor repairs only. That's not how the big charity world works. You have a grant for a full roof and you use it or lose it. We went away. We didn't want to make any money but that's what they wanted us to do. So be it.

Then came GAF. One of Jo Anderson's last act as territory manager was to ask us if we would donate labor on a few homes for Habitat. This is a nationwide partnership between GAF, the GAF Master Elite contractors, and Habitat for Humanity. We'll buy some material and get reimbursed eventually.

We also donated some expertise to the Armstrong Elementary School in Highland Park that they auctioned off. Ryan did the work. Yeah Ryan. He didn't even charge me. But he wants us to do more.

I ask everyone to give just a little to those in need. Not your relatives. Find some do gooders and do some good.

I feel good...

The News According to Jon

I sincerely hope nobody is offended today but I'm going out on a limb today. My limb. Here goes:
Good morning boys and girls, or as they now say in some parts of the military, boys and boys. Now that wasn't so bad. One less thing to worry about. Plus the armed services have all that new closet space freed up. We have to do something because as we and our Ruskie friends send our bombs to oblivion, rather than the other way around (bombs send us...) the rest of the world seems intent on making up on the vacuum. Reminds me of the Tom Lehrer song "Who's Next." He's singing about bombs, not gays. In order of appearance: America, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel (come on, they just haven't blown one up yet), India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the sharing states of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, and Greece. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and South Africa gave them up. Iran, as we all know, wants only peaceful nuclear stuff as so will the Saudis and all their other neighbors. Chavez is going there and has missiles from Iran to put them on.
The real reason I got out of bed this morning was to read about the atrocity committed against Julian Assange: the newspapers leaked confidential police reports on the rape charges against him in Sweden. He did admit to having unprotected sex with two different women. What a genius. That should be a crime in itself.
That's when the Pope stepped in and said condoms were good sometimes. This definitely is not your grandparent's Pope.
I believe all the late night comics are obliged by codified law to delve into this one tonight. Assange, not the Pope, not the gay military, not anything else. Boy how military parades are going to change is an unforeseen outcome though.
Assange's protector, Michael Moore, also made his fame on exposé of secret stuff like war and money. What a shame that these two modern day heroes with impeccable records be treated with less respect than their collective peeking peckers deserve.
It's only common sense that if you're going to rape someone you might as well do it in Sweden where rape rates are through the roof and convictions are declining. Might even be good for tourism. I can see it now: come to Sweden and rape us. If you're famous, we'll just say it was bad sex. Just wear a condom and it's okay. I'm not joking here. One of the girls said she had let it go too far so she let him do it anyway and another insisted he wear a condom. Since the sex was bad, one of the girls went to the police and they determined it was a crime. Seems I remember a case in Austin in the 1990's where a Grand Jury refused to indict a rapist because his victim convinced him to wear a condom.
We put a lot of roofs on made of the same material. The double layer EPDM rubber roofs reduced the chances of two holes aligning allowing water to enter.
I bet our troops are forbidden entry to many ports.
I did it. You never know where the line is but you know when you've passed it.
Back to the old boring Jon now.
Sweden has gone far on Green Roofs. Great place to commit a crime. I wonder what they'll grow on the roofs in California. They'll be falling off because they'll be high.
What has this world come to when it's a crime to commit a bad rape and it's not rape when the victim doesn't want to get AIDS. I'm just too old to understand. My foray into the world of redaction has failed miserably so I'll leave you with this advice:
Come Saturday we're having a big birthday party. Everyone is excited and the ornaments are out. We all need to remember to give Him, our Lord, the best gift we can. That gift is yourself. Give yourself to Him and pray your soul to keep.
Merry Christmas to all.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Winter Roofs and Festivals

It's official.Winter is here. I do not use the traditional calendar to determine the official commencement of the first and last season of the year. Mine is much older and traditional and is in much greater use than this Gregorian or Christian one. I still use a form of Gregorian Chant but it is less than melodious. The melody goes something like this: darn it's cold...burr...
My toes are cold and just like that groundhog, they went back into the sack. You can't roof. Forget Rudolph's red nose and look down at your red toes. A leading cause of divorce is the selfish act of placing your steely toes upon one's spouse. Takes the moment right out.
My son is no doubtingly going to complain, like it is going to do some good. Even the magnets for picking up nails don't work as well but this is due to operator inattentiveness.
About the only roofing you can put on in this climate is wood or thatch but even there the danger level is great due to frost and numb toes.
The great long weekend is arriving making those roofers who tried to work a traditional five day work week wish they had abandoned the 14th century Christian calendar modified by modern 40 hour work week broken into five eight hour days with a lunch break and two smaller breaks. It does not work that way here. Get up, roll out of bed and drag a comb across your head...everyday but don't start a roof on Sunday and don't forget your anniversary. We do honor the birth and death of our Lord and spend those days with loved ones but lesser holidays are not in there. No President's Day, Memorial Day, or Halloween days off. The only civil roofing holiday is the Fourth of July. (Some take off on Cinco de Mayo, which translates into The Day of Drinking.)
Rainy days are our weekends. Once back in the early nineties the crews worked for a month straight without a day off. After two days of rain they were at it pretty hard. At 7:30 AM the reps from Gerard showed up at my office and came in. We decided to go to breakfast and when we open the door there were about forty trucks jamming the parking lot.
Drunk roofers everywhere. We couldn't go anywhere.
I was furious. Never in my mind could I have imagined that anyone could have said "hey, let's go to the office and get yelled at." These guys had it pent up in them pretty bad. They were standing in a pouring rain oblivious to the monsoon going on. I guess it was drowned out by the cumbias.
Party over and lesson learned. Never keep giving the men roofs back to back because they'll run themselves to death like a horse being prodded in a race.
We separated roofs with half days and repairs or just a day off. Plus the group is older now.
The Kiwis that arrived that morning were not shocked. They said the roofers in New Zealand were the same way.
The no drinking rules went into effect immediately and the 1990's went into effect. We serve O'Duols at the Christmas party and the now married men have been emasculated from lovers to providers. Plus they are daddies now.
Winter has arrived in Dallas

Saturday, December 11, 2010

We Receiced an Unexpected Award for Roofing

Ryan called me all excited. He took the call. On our first year at Angie's List we received the Super Service Award for roofing. Wow. Didn't expect that.
While the BBB is answering questions about giving companies good ratings in exchange for dues or a simple response that states the client is wrong, Angie's List has opened an interactive website that bears all. The customers write about their experiences and the business may respond. The customer also grades their experience in several categories: price, punctuality, professionalism, quality, and overall. From "A" to "F." It's right out there in the open.
Here's how Angie describes it: "A $20 Angie’s List membership to find the best local roofer is nothing compared to the $20,000 price tag of a roofing job. Angie’s List knows the identity of every reviewer and because of that, our members trust Angie’s List reviews to help them make the best hiring decisions..."
The members search for whatever they happen to need and a list of companies come up. The are advertisers but anyone Angie has heard about is also on the list. Whether or not a business wants to be rated or not, Angie is going to post whatever she has received.
While some people can't be made happy, you can get the big picture of a company's moral and professional fiber. We've made two people mad but we didn't do business with them Those ratings are there to see but do not effect our grade. Another gave me a "D" but a good write up. She later changed it to "C" after I pointed out the conflict between her words and her rating. I poured my heart into that very difficult job that I doubt anyone else could have done. We made a 100% cathedral ceiling on a nearly vertical pitch very energy efficient and 100% venting. We have some secret technology that the Chinese are trying to steal.
Then there's the others. Page after page of "Page of Happiness." The stories are their of the miracles we pulled off, the preexisting problems that no one knew were there, the death trap carbon monoxide attic that only we inspected, the small or no existent holes in the soffit vents that no other contractor inspected, the imbalanced ventilation, the broken rafters no one saw but us, the horror we found and fixed for pennies on the dollar.
Yes we have a new feather in our cap to add to the others.
We have lead removal and disposal certified experts.
We have certified people from several manufacturers.
We are Vinyl Siding Institute certified.
Mater Elite for GAF.
BBB with an A, which is not saying much as I know a lot of scoundrels with an A.
And lastly, I want to thank everybody we had the opportunity to help this year, especially those of you who paid and the ones who took the time to rate us at Angie's List.
It has been an honor having you honor us. We are proud.
www.jonwrightroofing.com

Stop Killing You Great Grandchildren

Is 2010 the end of a decade or the beginning of a new one? People start counting at the number one while some scientists and mathematicians insist that zero is the start. At Mission Control zero is the last number and to "Three Dog Night": One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do.Two can be as bad as one.It's the loneliest number since the number one.
Now to the point. We are never alone. We are in this thing together as one. You can't escape me until my carbon has been returned to the planet and the water in my body has evaporated. While I'm here I'm using resources as part of a food chain, a carbon chain, and a resource consumer. So are you. So is everyone. Those ones add up to 6,887,000,000, according to Wikipedia. The sites says that since the Black Plague in 1400 the population has been steadily increasing.
Resources are falling too. Yes we might find more but they are falling nevertheless. Where does it end? So what can you do about it? Slow it down. Turn it around.
You have a moral, ethical, planetary, and special obligation to help. Not helping is like driving by a car crash and failing to render aid. I'm not saying we causing global warming, or the more vague term of climate change. I'm saying we are heading for a cliff and nobody is sure how far away it is. You may not know where the line is but you'll surely know when you've crossed it.
Every great breakthrough from medicine to agriculture has, in the end, created more suffering because it has allowed more people to live longer and have more babies so that when that breakthrough has succeed to it's ultimate point the point in the curve is higher. There are more people to starve, to get sick, to suffer.
How can we stop this? It's in the little things you do. How you dispose of your trash, when you walk instead of drive, what type of car you drive, and, of course, the envelope of your home. The windows, siding, and roof of your home are killing your great grandchildren. So is your trash.
Why not give your neighbor recycle bags for Christmas or whatever your winter celebration happens to be? Separate your trash for the recyclers. Buy a little better dish washer. Teach your kids to turn off the lights. Open the windows on pretty days. Use a blanket or a sweater when chilly rather than spike up the heat.
Frugalistas will tell you that they'll spend money to keep from losing money long term on utilities and HVAC repairs. Plus they help your great grandchildren.
When you don't consider ventilating your attic properly or use a contractor that doesn't care about the environment, you are committing a crime against humanity. Imagine if you fall a few points shy on the balance sheet and get eternal damnation. You couldn't be reborn if the only thing you did with God's creation was just squandered it. Think about it. Think deep and hard. There are consequences and those that do good will receive rewards while those that don't reap what they sow. But in this lifetime and those of posterity, we will all reap what others sowed.
Some say"well China pollutes." "Billy gots a nickel. I wants a nickel too." Whaaaaaaaa!
Do you remember the Cuyahoga River , the river that caught fire in 1969? A river caught fire? Yes it did. And we turned it around and cleaned up this country. Now people around the world are growing richer and dying faster because they breath junk. In Tehran the air burns their throats. In Pakistan people are getting cancer from pesticides. The Chinese are increasing in wealth but dying of smog.
There is not a sickly rich man who wouldn't trade his wealth for his health, unless he was stupid.
You can eat healthy and exercise but that doesn't give you the right to give my son emphysema. If anyone in Dallas lives long enough he'll get that disease because of the smog.
The point is my recommendation for a New Years resolution: 2011 is the year I went green. Or greener. Get up and go outside. Look around your house at the cracks. Go in the attic and see if you can see light coming in your soffit vents. Check your attic access and see it it is weather stripped. When the frost comes, go outside and see if the frost on your house melts first or last in the neighborhood. If it is first, you lose. If one area goes rapidly while others go slowly, and you don't have a cathedral ceiling there, then go figure out why the heat is pouring out right there.
Energy loss is like a garden soaker hose. As you stop the largest hole in the hose, more water makes it to the end of the hose but the smaller hoses leak a little more too. Start by fixing the big energy losers first. If you put on a great energy efficient roof and ventilation system but your air conditioning ducts are ripped open, you'll have a cooler attic than anyone else.
I commented to one of my customers that he had nice windows. He cursed the guy that put them in. He said they did nothing for him. I knew that this was wrong. His ducts were torn, he had little insulation, his low sloped roof had little ventilation. There was no energy for his windows to save.
With his new radiant barrier deck and properly balance ventilation system designed around "The 300 Rule" and Venturi and Bernoulli Principles, I had effectively given him his new windows. They might have been there in form but metaphysically they were not functioning as energy efficient windows. They were a mirage.
So if you want your windows, insulation, and HVAC system to work better, fix your ventilation.
Having regressed for the umpteenth time, I reiterate: Let's make 2011 the year we started being considerate to God's gift of planet Earth and let's not be the ones who stole if from future generations.
Merry Christmas.
New flash! We've been informed that we're receiving the Angie's List Super Service Award for our roofing.
ww.jonwrightroofing.com

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Winter Roofing Success

We've been working on a roof in Dallas on Cochran Creek the last two days and the shingles have sealed well. The roof is only a 3/12 and is two story. We followed code and two ply felted it and bumped the system with ice barrier, StormGuard, and Shinglemate felt. We have, like always, hand nailed the roofing and are issuing the System Plus Warranty. This upgrades the material warranty from a 30 year pro rated material only warranty to a full 25 year labor and 20 year material replacement policy. After that the material is prorated to the 30 year mark. In the mornings it was about 34°F and 54°F in the afternoon according to Google and his sisters at The Weather Channel and Accuweather. Even though the roof had a lower slope than usual, hence two ply felt, and the sun shined brightly on a windless day, I figured it might take two days for the shingles to seal down. They sealed within minutes. The roof is hand nailed. Bring it on baby. I'll stand behind this one up to 150 or 160mph. With the Shinglemate no wrinkle felt, Prostart starter, and our professional hand nailing of quality High Definition 30 year Timberline shingles by GAF, this roof will out perform any of the steep roofs in the barrio. She also gets the System Plus Warranty which basically removes the pro ration of the material part of the warranty and adds labor. In better lingo, the pro rated material only warranty of 30 years becomes non pro rated material for twenty, the labor to replace the roof is covered for 25 years 100% and the remaining few years is pro rated on material with labor added in. It's like a roof insurance policy, the material and adds labor. If her shingles do not perform, lose their granules, Now if we could just add a little hail to that wind my accountant might be happy. Don't forget kids, the tax credits are expiring for Energy Star windows. You still have time if you act fast.

The Constant and Growing Demands of Roofs

Man wanted to keep his family dry and caves were in short supply due to the technological breakthrough of fire. The population soared. Thus came the need and fulfillment of the structure called a roof.
The Misses wasn't too happy because it wasn't pretty. The home designer trade was begun and a plethora of designs and colors of roofs has been expanding exponentially for thousands of years. I think there are more colors in more styles in different types by different manufacturers than their are roofing contractors. It never ceases to amaze me anymore if two neighbors end up with the same roof type and color.
Now enter the architect, the government, and the financial adviser. They want it to be energy efficient, laying up there in the furnace called the Texas sun.
Safe too? Breathing so the kids don't get sick is coming but it is still possible to buy a roof that makes you sick, as most people do. Thank God, or gods for you eastern types, and whoever for you advertisement on bus buying types ( probably nobody), that we are still free to buy bad roofing techniques from guys that have never heard of the Three Hundred Rule, the chimney effect, or the soda straw theory of fluid dynamics. This last one is the first to be theorized by a non Italian. Venturi (Mr. Spellcheck needs to go back to college) and Bernoulli had a monopoly until recently. Reminds you of the Pope doesn't it. Someday he might be a bear, a Russian one, and then the woods better look out.
Then came energy providing roofs. Photo collecting machinery became part of the system.
Finally, at this point of evolution, roofs have become gardens, commonly known as vegetative roofs. You can live or work beneath one.Talk about going full circle. Seems a lot like a cave.
No you can't eat the roof even though when we were in grade school we called some of the stuff xxxx-on-a-shingle.
You can recycle roofs though and they can be made into roads.
I wonder what's next?
www.jonwrightroofing.com

Why You Don't Caulk Exposed Nails?

Caulking exposed nails on flashings(Leave me alone Spellckeck dude. You don't even recognize yourself in the mirror.) and the last piece of ridge is a complete waste of time and can cause more harm than good. We don't want those flashings (ditto)to blow off so we nail them on the face and the last piece of ridge cannot be blind nailed simply because it is the last. Blind nailing means the nails are not exposed "to the weather." You can't see them
Home inspectors brought in on real estate transactions have been requiring this for several years now but for many a moon we left them exposed successfully. That caulk will not help and may cause more problems.
There are three ways to waterproof:
1) Turn the water using gravity pull the water downward, cascading from one shingle out onto the other.
2) Seal out the water with adhesives such as caulk or pookie (plastic cement, a word.) or, as in the case of flat roofs, making a giant bathtub-like liner out of the roof system deemed for the job.
3) Lastly is the compression seal. Mechanics use this to keep gaskets from leaking just as wine makers use cork to keep the wine in the bottle fresh.
Back up on the roof imagine a nail being hammered through a piece of metal flashing with a couple of layers of overlapping shingles underneath it. The sun never shines there and the nail is flush. The head of the nails is tight keeping almost all the water out but the shank is gasketed (it's a word in Texas Mr. Spellcheck)by the metal and at least two layers of roofing material. That cork will be like the Dead Sea Scrolls, never exposed to the destructive powers of the subatomic radiation of the sun.
Now imagine the caulk on it. Will it discolor? Is it silicone that will lay on the flashing but allow water to get under it in a short period of time, making the metal rust? Maybe it is a metal caulk that does its job and makes you have to demolish the flashing to move it or reset it. The roofer probably used whatever he had. It doesn't matter. All are failures.
Don't believe me? Do you think this will leak without it or won't cause a problem for the next guy? Ask Gerard, Stonehenge, Decra, Atas, Metro, and a host of others that are made in the USA, Canada, Jamaica, Korea, Mexico, China, New Zealand, Australia, and Mars (projected to open in 2025. Since 1957, all over the world, hundreds of thousands of roofs with thousands of panels with tens of thousands of exposed nails have been put up without caulking the nails. Why has it all of a sudden necessary to caulk the nails. If this were true a new industry would be born and the unemployment rate would fall to negative numbers. We'd need more immigrants and domestic births. It would take many lifespans to correct this egregious crime of moral turpitude. There ought to be a law. Oops, I think there is one somewhere. It has sprung from the primordial soup because it sounds good: CAULK IT!
Give me a break and think before you start making me put out an inferior product because it sounds good on the surface, just like caulk on a flashing nail.