Sore all over

[Don M.]

I noticed a few homes around me getting re-reroofed where they but some kind of large blue tarp on the ground to catch the material they throw off. I didn't watch them deal with it but suspect it makes clean up a lot less difficult and time consuming.

Yes, the contractor spread big heavy duty cloth panels all around the house before they started. This is primarily to catch the hundreds of nails that are ripped off as they rake off all the old shingles. It still requires picking up the vast majority of the chunks of old shingles, by hand, as the panels/tarps would be almost impossible to lift with hundreds of pounds of old shingles covering each one. As a final step, when I got all the big messes cleaned up, the contractor went all over the perimeter of the house with a big magnet on rollers, and picked up hundreds of nails that had fallen beyond the tarps. Then, yesterday, I rigged up a rope on a big old stereo woofer magnet I have, and dragged that all over the yard, and picked up another hundred, or so nails. I'll repeat that process a few more times in coming days....since when the great grandkids come to visit, they have a habit of running around outdoors in their bare feet....sure don't want one of those little squirts getting a nail in their foot....plus, I don't want to get a flat tire on my riding mower as I cut the grass. Bottom line....getting a roof completely replaced in a huge mess, and the cleanup takes almost as much time and effort as doing the roof, itself. At least, my back and legs feel much better this morning after moving around and policing up more nails yesterday...I'll make another "magnet" pass this morning, and the exercise will be the best "medicine" for me.