Jar of Goodness 12.4.22: New Gutters, and Done!

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for our new gutters, and for having this roofing-siding-gutter project be done!

Lawsey, it’s expensive. Fortunately, the roof and replacement gutters were covered by insurance. It was damaged by a hailstorm on March 27, 2020, with tennis-ball-sized hail. The city was still recovering from the 2019 tornado! We were sitting out on the sunporch when the hail started—there was no thunderstorm; it sounded like someone just started hitting the roof with a sledgehammer. It totaled my car; yeah, 2020 was a pretty messed-up year. Anyway . . .

We’d been wanting to put siding on our front and back dormers. With our steeply slanted roof, they’re difficult to get to, and the front dormer gets blasted by heat. The back one, facing northeast, wants to grow lichen and moss. Poor old wooden things. Here's a "before" picture, the dormer and the roof, covered with the old shingles from 2006.

So we tacked that onto our work order.

The gutters in front now have gutter guards, which hopefully will prevent leaves and twigs from getting trapped. We’ve been pretty tired of water overflowing it and spilling onto our front doorstep. The gutter guys also noticed that the old gutter on the sunporch wasn’t draining properly. A bunch of water splashed out of it when they pulled it off. No wonder we’ve had a problem with mosquitoes in our backyard, eh?

We also had the “gutter guys” add a small section of gutter to the little roof over our driveway. In 2012 when we got our new sidewalks and driveway, the slope was changed such that much of the water in the driveway must drain via a drain near our basement doors. This includes any water that hits the three-story Broadway side of our house and runs down. That’s a lot for that little drain to handle, and we sometimes get water coming into our basement. The gutter, hopefully, will help. Below, views of "before" (with new roof) and "after" (with new roof, plus new gutter).

Apart from writing a pretty breathtaking check for this (so hooray for the big deposit from the insurance company), we’re done, done-done-done with this project.

WHAT will we be thankful for next week?? Tune in and find out!

Jar of Goodness 11.27.22: Dormer Siding

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for our newly re-sided front and back dormer windows!

The front dormer doesn’t look much different, except much, much better. The workers covered up the old white asbestos siding with white vinyl siding. The new green fascia looks fantastic, too.

The back dormer looks substantially better, too, plus a lot different. For as long as anyone can remember, it has been “sided” with asphalt shingles. In 2006, we had our previous (awful) roofers put shingles onto it. But real siding is a much better choice. It’s also appropriately lined, beneath the siding, now.

The back dormer looks different, too, in that the new siding is kind of a sage green. We’ve been used to be being the same dark green as the shingles, but there aren’t that many choices in siding colors. Anyway, we love it.

So, YAY!

Another thing checked off our to-do list.

WHAT will we be thankful for next week?? Tune in and find out!

Jar of Goodness 9.11.22: New Roof!

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for our new roof!

Yayayayay! Premier Property Services put on our new roof on Wednesday, September 7!

It was thrilling just to see the materials arrive in our driveway the day before.

The team of workers arrived around 6:30 in the morning and were working by about 7. They took lunch from noon to 1, and then they kept working until dark—around 8 p.m. They were nearly done.

They came back the next day, again around 6:30, to finish the persnickety little rooflets above the front door and above the garage doors. Ta-da!

They still have to do the gutters and the new siding for front and back dormers, but those are different crews, and at least the roof is done.

Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!

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Note, 10-15-22: though this post is for September 11, 2022, which was the day we celebrated, I’m actually uploading it on October 15, which is why the photos all look like autumn—I took all the pictures today! And no, we still haven’t gotten the new gutters or siding, which is why the gutters and siding look the same as they have for years. And we still haven’t opened that bottle of champagne we got for our “roof is finished” celebration.

Also, a little backstory: Our previous roof was put on by a gang of riff raff in May 2006. The company’s name rhymed with "Narco," we realized in hindsight. The company disappeared from Missouri within a year.

Seriously, it took them four days to do the roof, and the owner’s son finally came and yelled at them to finish it the hell up. They used oceans of silicone caulk. The owner’s son came and beat on our door the evening they supposedly finished and demanded payment. “Now.” Yes, we made complaints to the BBB, but that did nothing. The BBB wanted us to let them back on our roof to "make it right." By that time, we needed them to stay far away from us and our property.

Here's a picture of the awful roofers from 2006:

The crew in 2006 were awful, and in retrospect, we were genuinely traumatized. This has set the tone for our home improvements: we are scared to hire anyone to do anything, simple as that.

So yeah, two weeks later, in 2006, we had a big rain, the front gutter overflowed, and we had water in our basement. Also within a month, shingles were falling off our back dormer and more. In 2010, we needed to get the sunporch roof replaced (March 1) thanks to ice/water shield not having been installed. We also had to have the sunporch ceiling replaced (June), since water had leaked in so badly.

So, in a nutshell, ever since 2006, we have been skeptical of our roof’s soundness and angry to have been taken in by those crumbs. Now that we have a new roof, installed by a good company with sober workers, we feel much, much better.