Discussion: Machine

Will you be acquiring one of your own soon? :-)

Thanks, Janet. Fixed the link. It is pretty amazing how clean things are around here in the midle of a roofing job. And J-J, no, as cool as it is, no desire to get this very dedicated single purpose implement.

When we got our new roof I don't think they had one of those; just fairly accurate throwers. Of course we don't have the beautiful gardens you have. :-)

Our roofers showed up at 7 and were done by 2! Only ever found small pieces of shingle afterwards too. They did a great job.

So Charlie, we need to repair our roof in the next year or so. What percentage more did you pay for the company that uses the roofer buggy.

Very interesting Charlie. Congratulations on a painless reroofing...not always the case. Looks like typical Yankee ingenuity at work...I've never seen one of those buggies here in the midwest.

Here every building I've even owned has had a 10" sandwich of old roofs, laid one on top of the other, dating back to the 1880's. The first couple of old roofs at the bottom were tar-and-gravel, with the gravel stones still imbedded! Tear-offs take weeks, with dirt and debris flying throughout the neighborhood. And the bared roof boards have to be temporarily covered and sealed each night...and you hope any rainstorms are very light until the final roof is in place. Replacing landscaping afterward is a given.

There's been a revolution in roofing materials. I've been roofing with membrane roofing material, that is actually set afire as it is assembled in order to weld the entire roof together into a seamless sheet. It is not uncommon for a careless roofer to set the building on fire during this process. All and all, weeks of trauma, even if no roofer falls off a ladder.

So I envy the speed and expertise you enjoyed...hope the roof is trouble-free for many years.

This has been the most remarkable and satisfying experience. The job was completed in a day and a half, and you would be very hard pressed to tell they had even been here. It is only regrettable that I won't be needing them again. David the roofer is all smiles if you ask him about the buggy. He has only had it for a month or so. Besides being fun to use and saving him a lot of time, he said his crew gets much less tired because they don't have to pick things up, and that they are less tired not only during the day, but as the week goes on. So maybe it is cheaper to hire a guy with one of these and a big, efficient crew. The very capable and motivated crew was certainly a key to how fast and how well they worked. I didn't have competing bids. I had asked Peter, the contractor who put the addition on my house and he said David was the best, so that was good enough for me. David charges based on the number of squares he puts up. There were two squares left over at the end, so his installation bill came in lower than he had quoted. I was happy enough to find $300 in my wallet and press it on him to give to his crew as a tip.