In March 2018, our home inspection noted that our roof was at end of life, the underlayment was original and 40 years old. We were given a 1-2 year timeline for a re-roof, and on April 7, 2020 it happened: roof leaks. San Diego County suffered a deluge of a storm system, receiving 7+ inches across the region over 4 days. By April 10, we had two leaks that could not be ignored. The plan to re-roof was set into motion.
Not one, but two separate leaks developed over a three day period in April 2020. Using bowls to catch the water :/
One of the leaks collected above the paint, and ballooned down. A pair of scissors was needed to pop the seal. Eric had ventured into the attic prior to see if the water could be stopped, and unfortunately it was running down the rafters to the wall, then running back above the kitchen.
Our driveway was underwater for nearly 24 hours, and our septic field was saturated. That meant keeping water use in the house to an absolute minimum; it was a long day.
Eric tried going up on the roof in the rain, but with the lichen it proved too slick to do safely. Once the rain passed, a trip back up with roof sealant was made. Obsolete pipe flashing had broken apart.
A healthy layer of Henry 208 was applied to anything that looked like a leak source.
Eric put it on all of the concrete flashings as well.
We never did find out if the leak patch worked, it wouldn’t rain in a significant amount until December 2020, after our roof was finished.
One of many roof selfies to come. 
The first phase was ordering roof underlayment. We opted to use 40 pound roofing paper, and planned to do two layers of paper the entire roof over.
We really wanted to order a 15 yard bin, but only 40 yard containers were available. It ended up being a blessing, as a fallen tree helped fill it to the brim.
We don’t really have any good pictures of the archaic solar water heater array, but this one will do. This system was removed from inside the house the first week of demolition, but these panels have been an eyesore since.
What the inside section looked like, lots of piping and an additional 80 gallon water tank.
The demo began with the panels, and the first pieces removed were the supply lines.
There they go!
This system used a heat exchanger, and circulated a glycol coolant. These coolants can become acidic in mixed metal systems. Both of the panels sprung leaks, as they were beyond their serviceable lifespan. You can clearly see the erosion of the tiles from the coolant leaks.
Panel #2 dissolving the tile below it.
A little view of the roof with the panels removed. It looks cleaner already!
Day one of tile removal, corresponds with this post title. Eric rented a lift from Home Depot for two days to see if it would work, and it did. The same pallet that was used to deliver the paper came in handy multiple times during this project.
The first tiles getting staged for storage!
End of day 1, and the tiles are adding up.
End of Day 2, and approximately 17,000 pounds of tile have been removed so far.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. The old underlayment is starting to tell it’s tale.
End of day 2 on the roof.
We had multiple areas where the underlayment was completely disintegrated. Adding sealant around the old flashing wasn’t going to do much for us.
Undisclosed repairs were made all over this side of the roof. Doesn’t matter now, since they will all be properly repaired.
More damage at another vent pipe. Despite multiple repairs, the damage persisted and continued.
Another potential leak point.
41 cents! An interesting score, found in one of the repaired areas.
A more recent repair.
Around the chimney was an absolute nightmare, multiple poorly made repairs overlapped this side of the roof. It became tedious to pry all of this mess up.
Eric snuck the tractor through the gate to help catch all of the crap that needed to come down. It made it as easy operation to simply dump into the bin.
Lots and lots of dirt and debris. One of many bucket loads of trash into the bin.
Whomever installed the solar panels simply supported the weight directly on the tiles, which is a no go. Again, not really a concern since the entire system was being demo-ed and not re-installed.
Somehow, some way, there weren’t any active leaks around these bolts. The previous roof was simply drilled through and a little sealant added on top. These bolts needed to be cut with a cutoff wheel to remove the framing.
A view looking down on the tractor bucket and tile storage in the front yard. Each bucket load was nearly 900 pounds.
Then BOOM, it was fall. Our apricot tree dropped a majority of it’s leaves in one day.
Of course Phillip had to help out! He carried one tile at a time, and the two he attempted here didn’t go anywhere as a pair.
Tiles are cleared, and it was time to peel our onion. We tried to roll as much as possible to facilitate an easy trash haul.
The front half of the house nearly stripped of underlayment. All of the nails that were used to secure the underlayment were removed, and it was a painstaking process. But necessary to prevent any penetrations when the new paper was laid.
Our damaged wood was presenting itself as well. All in all, we replaced twenty 4’x8′ sheets, and 288′ of 2″x6″ fascia board. You can see some of the prior wood replacement in the corner.
That is one naked roof!
Roof is fully stripped, and ready to remove the fascia boards. Our weather station was relocated to a tree in the backyard for the duration of the rest of the project. All exterior cameras installed on the fascia were also removed.
One of many material runs, and this was a biggie. 20 sheets of 1/2 inch plywood, 18 2″x6″x16′, and 13 1″x4″x16′ fascia boards. At the time, lumber prices were through the roof and this load was nearly $1000.
It was time to load the new sheet goods, and Eric made the *bad* executive decision to balance the load on top of the bucket. This should have not been done or attempted, as a minor tip of the bucket could have resulted in a face full of lumber that would have resulted in an injury. That said, extra effort was made to prevent that from happening, and it didn’t.
Some scrap wood from another project was used as a cleat to keep the new lumber from sliding right off the roof. That kinda is it’s primary job, isn’t it?
All 20 sheets ready for deployment as needed.
The same ill-advised method was used to bring scraps down, and the same precautions were observed.
Looking form the outside in, one sheet at a time.
Seeing progress felt good at this point, as this was back breaking labor.
Fascia board demo time. Not only were these nailed into the rafter tails, but also nailed on the edge through the roofing plywood. There were so many partial repairs with hidden screws that made this a much more involved process than anticipated.
Another roof selfie, Eric really is doing this himself… 😛
Our concentric vent for our new gas furnace is installed.
The attic in it’s full naked configuration had an interesting array of holes as viewed inside. Eric was able to snap a few of these while installing the aforementioned vent.
Another overlapping project was the installation of shade sails for the backyard. Now was the time to map out anchor points, and finalize the plans
Measurements were laid out, double checked, and finalized by drilling the anchor points.
3 of 4.
4 of 4.
A road map of sorts was made to assist with finding our holes once new paper is laid out. If only Mrs. Anderson from freshman AP Geometry could see me using the Pythagorean Theorem on the roof!
New fascia is installed with the proper edge flashing after paper was laid.
29 rolls of 40 pound felt were on hand to get loaded onto the roof, and the tractor made short work of that. A total of 32 rolls would be used to complete the project, and that was a single layer on the front, and double layer on the back.
Using a hand truck on the roof seemed odd at the time, but when in Rome…
The last of the fascia boards installed. This flashing was on the roof for a test fit since our vent was 4.5″ and flashings only came in 4″ or 5″ sizes. It should be noted that the entire roof was re-nailed to the rafters, and did that tighten up the house! It was worth the additional 2000 or so nails…
First run of paper rolled out! We hit a snag as winds had come up on and off for a few days, which prevent us from making any progress for nearly a week. This section had blown off by 50% in one gust before it could be tacked in place completely.
Once the wind died down, progress came quickly. The downside was the temperature increased exponentially on top of the black paper. Even with temps in the low 70’s, it was hot work. Better than 90’s or 100’s though!
More progress with paper.
“I am smiling” is how Eric felt at this point. This project was bogged down with additional work and delays, but the show had to go on.
The day we were water tight! What a miracle, as some light showers were forecast. Luckily we would be in the clear, and it was the only precipitation we had while the tile roof was on the ground.
Eric made flashing for the chimney, as this was a spot that really needed attention. Both flashing and counter flashing were installed to keep this area water tight.
One consideration around the chimney was our service entrance conduit. While it was code to have this run through the house to the panel when built, that is no longer the case. All new conduits must be completely accessible on the outside of the property before the electrical meter these days.
Measurements and work on the metal brake were on point, and fit like a glove. We do not want any leaks here!
The second layer of felt was laid over the first. It might not have been the right way to do it, but that was the way it was done here.
The roof is finally ready to load tile, we CAN’T wait :p
Cardboard tubes from roof paper that were strewn about the job site, going to the recycling yard.
Off goes the 40 yard bin! We are happy to have part of our front yard back, and imagine the neighbors are happy to have this eye sore removed as well.
Our friend Steve had a prior knee injury, and was able to see a specialist for a consultation and MRI once all of the tiles were removed. He was unable to help, due to the risk of further damage to his knee. What do? A favor was called into another family friend, a retired roofing contractor who maintains licensing for friends and family. He agreed to help, but was not interested in loading 34,000 pounds of tile.
After two weeks, he called and offered to help with the loading, provided I was the third laborer to lift tiles. And so it began… the entire back of the house was loaded and staged in 3 hours. An entire day’s worth of work before lunch, and worth every penny.
Boom goes the dynamite! What a sight to see, and we recovered the backyard.
The mess was pretty epic. The entire backyard was cleaned and pressure washed to gain back a sense of completion. Being in construction mode is doable, but fatiguing non the less.
The front of the house for loading tile. Eric pre-staged this setup prior to work the following morning. Again, another 17,000+ pounds of tile would go up in a few hours.
While we wouldn’t get a new roof for Christmas, we would get all of the tile up in time to celebrate the gift. A sharp eye might notice the fascia is primed and ready for paint prior to tiles being installed.
One of three pairs of gloves that were worn into oblivion. This pair was #3, and #2 lasted mere hours before failure. A fourth set was bought to replace these, and will likely last a year or longer with as few projects as we have left.
Tile going down, it is a beautiful sight indeed!
New tile and new exterior color scheme are completed.
The back of the house, it is really coming along.
As it turned out, we needed almost 200 additional tiles. Luckily our shape was still in production, and it was a significant savings to simply buy a pallet versus individuals. We saved over $200 by buying more than we needed.
The roofing supply house had me sign a damage waiver to load the pallet. This weighs 3300 pounds, and was a significant overload of my half ton truck. I drove back roads and kept speeds below 35 mph the entire way back.
Unwrapping and loading more tile… We were sick of the work at this point, but were in the final stretch of this major project being completed.
Final tile placement and finished chimney flashing are done. We are determined to not have any issues for years to come.
We opted to re-install our rain gutters, and had our painter spray them while he was working on the rest of the house. Budget over runs soaked up the option to buy new replacements.
Staging gutter number one, and prepping new hardware.
Purpose built gutter screws would mean these are rock solid and will perform for years to come.
Gutter screens will help if leaves or any other gunk lands back in the gutters.
A precarious balancing act, but it worked.
Both gutters are up and ready for service. They turned out great!
Almost finished… We had purchased some new edge tiles on New Year’s Eve, but the color we needed were not in stock despite the computer showing inventory. Phillip helped Eric pick up the remaining materials to put this project to bed.
Our barrel rounds loaded and ready to go up on the roof.
With the roof finished, it is time to explore a new paint color to tie it all together. We have roof specific paint on order, and will make a decision soon… Stay tuned!