New roof aftermath - cleaning up the attic

Posted by Dan_Musicant on November 6, 2005, 2:24 pm

I just had 95 years worth of roofing materials removed and a new roof
applied by a local roofing company. Overall, I think they did a good job
although I'm not knowledgable. However I did do some homework.

The house had skip sheathing, which is 1x4's, with around 4-6 inches
space between boards. The skip sheathing was covered by wood shingles
and there were several layers of asphalt shingles over that.

If any one is contemplating a complete tearoff such as I just had done
to my 2 story 1925 footer with attic, I can highly recommend one thing -
that you put down plastic in your attic before they do the tear off. The
tear off is the very first thing they do, so have the plastic down
before they arrive. You can use thin stuff, probably the 1 mil sheeting
they have at Home Depot, etc. After the first day they'd done one side
of the house and fortunately the roofers handed me a roll of such
sheeting and I put it down on the other side before they tore that off.
That will simplify cleaning of 1/2 the attic, but the first half is
going to be pure hell. I already removed eight 5-gallon buckets full of
debris and I'm sure I couldn't have removed more than 1/3 of the bigger
debris from that 1/2 of the attic space. I figure the entire attic is
around 1200 square feet. The smaller stuff is going to be even tougher -
the stuff that's still too big for my shop vac. Add to that the fact
that it gets harder and harder to crawl into the areas close to the
eaves and I can see that it will be murder trying to get the attic
clean.

I do have gable vents in north and south dormers (4 in all, 14" x 24")
that I can temporarily remove and shove debris out onto the roof,
followed by sweeping the sloped roof and cleaning out the gutters and
doing pickup on the ground. That may beat continual bucket transport
from the attic, but even so it's going to be a very tough job if I want
my attic to be clean.

Even the part where I have plastic down is going to be hard. After I
roll up the plastic and get it out of there (may not be easy) there will
be a LOT of stuff close to the eaves, where I couldn't reach the
plastic. That will be very hard to reach because of the very limited
space in there. I'll have to resort to poles with some protuberance
(like a hoe) to pull debris to where I can reach it. That followed by
vacuuming with 2 extensions, hopefully. It's going to be messy, dirty
work.

If anyone knows of any methods I can employ that I haven't thought of,
I'd appreciate hearing about them.

Dan

Posted by No on November 7, 2005, 10:00 am

Hi Dan - Clean-up is the hardest part of a roofing job that involves a
rear-off in my opinion. Make sure expectations are regarding clean-up
are clear and agreed upon between you and your roofer.

The one method you haven't thought of for cleaning is to pay somone!
Otherwise just get out and do it, pick-up stuff, shop vac, magnetic
roller for nails in yard.

BTW - you did the right thing doing a complete tear-off.

Posted by Dan_Musicant on November 8, 2005, 12:29 pm

:Hi Dan - Clean-up is the hardest part of a roofing job that involves a
:rear-off in my opinion. Make sure expectations are regarding clean-up
:are clear and agreed upon between you and your roofer.
:
:The one method you haven't thought of for cleaning is to pay somone!
:Otherwise just get out and do it, pick-up stuff, shop vac, magnetic
:roller for nails in yard.
:
:BTW - you did the right thing doing a complete tear-off.

The roofer did have a paragraph early in the contract where they advised
putting down plastic on "sensitive" parts of the attic or over areas of
storage. I didn't think I had any "sensitive" parts, so I decided to
ignore that and figured I would just clean it by hand. I wasn't in the
least prepared for the extent of the debris. It's absolutely staggering.
As a rough off the cuff estimate I'd say that the debris that fell into
the attic space after tearoff of the entire roof would fill around fifty
5-gallon buckets (uncompressed)! And much of that I'm going to have to
fetch somehow from the eaves, where there appears to be the highest
concentration. I will have a hard time squeezing myself into the limited
space where I can somehow reach that stuff even with some kind of pole
device.

The contract said bluntly that there were no funds allocated for cleanup
of the attic, IOW that cleanup of the attic was on me. I'd read that,
and I accept responsibility. I only wish I'd known how bad the problem
would be and I would have put plastic down in both parts of the attic. I
feel very lucky that the crew chief was nice enough to supply me with
plastic when he saw me cleaning up the first days mess in the northern
half of the attic.

Actually I had thought of paying someone to do it. It's not something I
have ever done, AFAIK - pay someone else to do a task that's onerous to
me but I am capable of doing. I've always done my own taxes, cleaned up
after myself in most circumstances, anyway.

Magnetic roller? Never heard of that before, but I suppose I should use
one on my lawn before I try to mow it!

Complete tear off was really the only option. It may have been legally
required in my circumstance, moreover that's the only way the dry rot
could have been addressed, and it was a MAJOR concern. I'm no expert,
but I think they did a pretty damn good job. The roof was wavy curvy
warped and weird looking and now it's almost straight and true. You have
to look pretty hard to detect imperfections.

Posted by Bob on November 8, 2005, 2:12 pm

> Magnetic roller? Never heard of that before, but I suppose

I should use

> one on my lawn before I try to mow it!

The roofer should have done that. Mine did.

Bob

Posted by Dan_Musicant on November 8, 2005, 9:08 pm

wrote:

:

:>
:> Magnetic roller? Never heard of that before, but I suppose

:I should use

:> one on my lawn before I try to mow it!

:
:The roofer should have done that. Mine did.
:
:Bob

Cool. I live about 2 blocks from my municipal tool lending library. I'll
ask them if they have one. I'm finding nails all around the perimeter of
the house and I'm sure there are a number of them on my lawn. It's a
small lawn, around 20' x 10'.

Dan

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