Sunday, August 3, 2014

Beam Me Up Scotty!!

Well that seems to be the slogan for the last 11 days!! What we though would take 3, maybe four days has taking MUCH longer! We have worked hard, but the long days in the sun have really worn us down and it seems that no matter how much sleep we get we are always still very tired.

But we have put up all the sheeting on the walls and the roof (just the 2 of us!) - it was hard work and I still have the bruises on my thighs to prove it.  I would carry and hoist the 4'x8' 5/8ths" sheets into the lift all myself while Scott positioned them in the lift, then I would either help him place it on the walls or I would hoist them up to him on the roof.

Scott was the only one of us that got on the roof - I'm too chicken and terribly afraid of heights!!

Scott bought 100' of nylon rope and we both made rope harnesses out of it (although I never really had to use mine).  He was harnessed in when placing all the sheeting on the roof but wasn't able to when he put down the IB3 Ice Shield.

After we had up all the sheeting, we rolled out the Tyvek.  Let me tell you, I though sheeting was hard, but trying to put up Tyvek (the rolls are 9' wide and are decently heavy) while on a lift cart, having to press and roll it along a wall while driving it forward and stapling it up - holy cow!! that wasn't very easy to do, especially when you are shorty's like us!  Luckily, about a week ago, our neighbor boy Brian came by and he's been helping us almost everyday since!! And the best part, other than his wonderful company and the fact that we feel like he is our adopted little brother, is that he is TALL with really long arms and has been a huge help to us both.

Once the Tyvek was up, Scott got on the roof and put down the IB3 Ice Shield which is basically sticky back tar paper stuff with a sand paper like feel to the top of it.  It was not fun for him, especially on his knees, and not fun for me to watch either.  Today he slipped on the underside plastic paper and I about lost it because I thought he was going to fall off the roof.  Thank goodness he caught himself!

But let me tell you, for any of you that think they may do what we are doing someday, we have some product review for you:

Stinger Stapler - worked ok for about 2/3rds of the time but just when we were nearing the last part, a staple got lodged in it and there is no way to easily take it apart to get it out!!  So the $50 bucks he spent on it basically was wasted.  However, the idea behind the Stinger is great - it's this staple gun that has these green round dots that the staple goes into to hold the Tyvek up that way the staples don't pull through.

IB3 Ice Shield - We used this in place of traditional 30lb roofing felt.  We thought that with the sticky back that it would hold much better.  Well this is a product we are SO disappointed in!!  First, it was crazy heavy and there is no easy way to put it on because you have to peel off the plastic backing while rolling it out.  The biggest disappointment - we got some 15mph winds with a few 25 mph gusts (lasted about 20-30 min total for the wind) and the stuff started peeling up!!  So Scott put nails in it to hold it down and today, we had another short bit of the same sort of wind and a whole section peeled up that was nailed down!! We have to put it back up on the roof tomorrow.  Here's the kicker - Scott said each roll of the IB3 is about $100 - we had to get 7 rolls.  Consequently, the traditional felt is only about $20 per roll (what he estimated) and he could have used that and bought a roofing nailer for much less than what we paid for the IB3.  We will never be using this product again but will have to make due this time.  Luckily with 4 layers (8" total) of rigid foam on top, all sealed with tape, there shouldn't be any issue of leaking.

We do have 1 full wall of the rigid foam up (2 sheets thick or 4" total on the outside of each wall) we still have part of the other full wall to put up along with finishing the mudroom and the front too and the roof, all 4 layers of it!!

Sorry... no pictures today! The internet here is slow, but we hope to return the lift the end of this week and I'll be able to upload lots of pictures then.

Have a great week!!

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