WARNING: Slow Blogging -- the 'rents return

My parents are due within the hour.  I've still not finished all the stuff I wanted to get done before they got here.  Blogging is on the back burner for now.  Quite literally, since I need the front burner to start chicken stew for dinner.

Dang, another freakout in progress.  Why is it for our parents we do this?  It's not like they don't already know about the dust bunnies under my bed...

Later.

12:18:45 PM    comment []

1.1 -- You might be an Engineer!

Re-roofing my house was a priceless example, if not the best example, of both excess engineering and too many engineers on a project.  Hubby shopped for shingles for six months.  He went through reams of manufacturers’ specifications, brought home dozens of samples.  What do you think of these? he asks.  Yeah, I like the brown one there…or maybe that brown one…or how about this brown one.  After the first dozen I told him just pick a f*ckin’ shingle, damnit.  It’s a good thing he’s not a woman, I can’t imagine him trying to pick out shoes or a dress for a special occasion.

The whole shopping thing started with a quote from a contractor.  Wait, let me back up.  It started when we bought this house nearly 13 years ago.  We got a credit for a new roof as part of the purchase package; Mr. Tightwad Engineer decided the roof wasn’t that bad, we wouldn’t be here but for a handful of years, we’ll just apply it to the purchase price of the house.  Hubby patches a few bad shingles and we’re good to go.  That is, until a BIG storm and a huge leak in the den six years ago.  Nuts.  We should have moved before the leak.  We get a quote from a contractor.  Hubby gets sticker shock and cold feet; I can smell wood burning as he paces around the outside of the house, looking at the roof.  He starts his analytical shopping frenzy after a couple more patches, then makes a pronouncement: Hell, I can do this for half the price.  I should have called the contractor right then and there.

Of course, before he can get all the right equipment (air compressor, nailers and air hoses, roofing shovels, blah-blah-blah), we have another leak over the garage.  I’m up on the roof, 4 months pregnant, fighting nausea, holding a garden house over suspect spots until Mr. Tightwad Engineer shouts from below, Wait, that’s it, mark it!  He patches with a shingle and roofing tar so that we can eke it out until Memorial Day weekend.  Between the patching and the scheduled re-roofing date, he gives me all kinds of rationalizations for why we need to do the roof by ourselves.  I can rent out the equipment, I can help my brother roof his house, my father can use the equipment on his house.  Yeah, yeah, whatever; nearly a thousand dollars later, I still don’t have a new roof.  Or even shingles.

The big weekend arrives, as do a horde of relatives.  Both his brothers, his parents, several friends, all appear.  They jaw about the process.  The shingles arrive.  The motley crew begins to rip off the old shingles.  Lots of running for unexpected minor supplies.  Confabs every 20 minutes between the brothers, the friends and the father – everybody has a different method for tackling this.  My father-in-law, trying to be politically correct, prefaces his objections with a waiver: If this were my house, I’d do it this way.  But it’s your house, you’re the boss.  And then the conversation gets a little warm, because father-in-law really does expect his son, Mr. Tightwad Engineer, to agree with him.  Of course, the residing engineer says this doesn’t agree with his calculations.  That’d be enough to make me spit; not certain how the “boys” all manage to work together without coming to blows.  The first shingles are laid out, in spite of this engineering-testosterone cocktail.  And all hell breaks loose.  The entire process stops cold, under the blazing sun of a late May day.

Somewhere along the way, after all the reading, shopping and comparing of shingles on the global market, hubby misses that one must specify either English or metric shingles upon ordering.  They don’t lay out properly on the roof because the shingles received are METRIC and his plans were for ENGLISH.

The roof does eventually go up; I’m worn to a stub, waddling around trying to cook lunches and dinners for a horde.   95% of the work is completed over the course of two weekends.  I spent several hundred dollars on food; add this cost to the cost of shingles, the equipment, gasoline, etc., and I think we saved 25% on the original quote.  Not worth crossing the street, considering the hassle and all the sweat equity and labor contributed by family and friends.

By the way, that original roofing quote?  The contractor would have been done in one day with the entire job, including old shingle disposal and pick up of any stray roofing nails.  My husband trimmed the last shingles in September that year, one month before my son was born. 

If a beloved engineer says to you, Hey, I can do this for half the cost, RUN. 

GET THE YELLOW PAGES. 

CALL A CONTRACTOR. 

NOW.

You’ll thank me.

8:27:24 AM    comment []