6/27-29/00 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was a pretty hot 80 degrees out when I arrived at 11:40. The short section of a log that I used as a step to get into the privy was rolled out of its place. That indicated that either someone had been up at the privy, or a bear had rolled it out looking for grubs. Since the rotten part of the log hadn't been scraped, I figured it must have been a person. The log wasn't fastened down and it is quite a step down out of the privy to the log, so it would have been very easy for someone who isn't used to it to have it roll out from underfoot when they stepped down on it. That is what I think happened. Fortunately there were no other signs of disturbance or damage.

The temperature rose to 87 degrees in the afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday were record breaking hot days in some Washington localities. The heat made working very uncomfortable for me.

I stapled down two courses of tar paper and removed all the tarps from the big roof. Then I made a bunch of 'chicken steps' out of two-foot lengths of 1x2. I started three 2-inch screws in each length, and then drove these screws in to hold the 1x2s on the roof for use as steps. CP had introduced me to the term 'chicken steps' to describe these boards. I am not sure if the name is a reflection on the nerve of the roofer, or if it simply refers to the similarity to the ramps you see going into a chicken coop. At any rate, these steps made it easier to walk up on the roof and it reduced my anxiety worrying about whether or not the tar paper might tear loose when I walked on it.

On Wednesday, I got started on the roof by 6:30 AM and got all but two courses of tar paper on the roof by 11:00. By then the shade was just leaving the roof and it was getting too hot for me. I took an early lunch break and a siesta for a couple hours. The trailer was a nice cool 65 degrees -- 20 degrees cooler than outside.

When I went back out to work, I started by pruning a bunch of branches and brush that would be in the way when it came time to carry the long roof panels up the walkways and onto the roof. The roof was back in the shade at about 4:30 so I went back up and finished tar papering the entire roof. I was pleased and relieved to be done with that job. I installed the rest of the chicken steps that I had made and then quit for the day.

I called Earl to take him up on his offer to help me carry panels up onto the roof. I figured I would be ready to start carrying them in the morning. He told me he was planning on going to a baseball game in Seattle, but he didn't have the tickets yet. If he didn't get the tickets, he said he would come over and help me.

On Thursday morning, I realized that I wasn't quite ready to carry panels. I made a bunch more chicken steps and screwed them down in two separate paths on the roof. The two paths led to the two positions that two people carrying roof panels would have to go to in order to stack the panels. I also installed a bracket made from two 2x4s at the bottom of where the stack would be in the center of the roof. The bracket would keep the stack of panels from sliding off the roof. I also made and installed two tie-downs that would keep panels from blowing off the stack in the wind. CP had stressed the importance of these tie-downs to me on a couple different occasions.

It dawned on me that once any panels were stacked on the roof, I would have a hard time measuring the roof for square, and I would have a hard time pre-drilling the screw holes for the clips like I did on the small roof. So, I set to work and did both of those jobs.

I was pleased to find, what I already knew, that a 30', 40', 50' triangle came out to within a sixteenth of an inch of being square. In fact, pulling on the tape with 10 to 20 lb. of force would pull the 50 foot mark on the tape exactly even with the pencil line cross hairs marking the corner of the triangle. That's about as square as you can get.

By the time I got all this done, it was time to pack up and leave for home. It was a good thing Earl didn't show up because I wasn't ready to haul panels after all. He must have gotten his baseball tickets and I was glad he did. I left for home at about 1:30.

7/1/00 Ellen and I went up to the property for the day, Saturday, to see if the two of us could carry some, or any, of the 40 foot roof panels up onto the roof. We had talked about the possibility of her helping carry them up for a long time, but neither of us knew exactly whether or not she could do it. She told me that she was going to carry either zero or all of the panels up, depending on whether or not she could carry even one. I asked her if she had been smoking dope. I would be happy if we could get even one panel up.

If we could get just one panel up, then I could install that one and then install the 40 feet of rake metal along that gable eave and I could get a start installing the ridge metal. That would keep me busy for a day or so until Earl, or someone else, might be able to help me carry more panels up. Any panels beyond one that Ellen could help me with would be gravy, but I thought all 31 was out of the question.

On the drive up, Ellen was insistent that her objective was all 31 panels. She asked me to estimate how long it would take to carry up one panel and I estimated from 5 to 10 minutes. She did the math and said "See? It will only take us 5 hours at the outside and we have all day". I didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm, but I was pleased that she was so eager. I didn't tell her what I was thinking, that I didn't think she could keep that pace up all afternoon.

We arrived shortly after noon and the weather was a nice cool 65 degrees. That was a blessing. We started with a tour of the building since Ellen hadn't seen it since the floor had been installed. Then I made a wooden mock-up of a 40 foot panel that we could use for practice. I didn't want to kink and ruin a panel just to test my walkways and find out if there was enough clearance everywhere.

When we carried the mock-up to the roof, we found a few bushes in the way, but I was able to get them out of the way easily by tucking some of them under the walkway and by laying the wooden mock-up on top of the others. When we got onto the roof, Ellen looked like she was having trouble walking on the chicken steps. She got down on one knee and had one hand on the roof as she went along. I wasn't sure if she was going to be able to carry her end of a panel that way, but she assured me that she just wasn't used to it and that she would be OK and that she was anxious to get started carrying the panels.

We went down to the panels, got the first one, and carried it up to the upper walkway with no problem. I told her to stop, and we set the panel down on edge on the walkway and held it between our legs while we (I) rested. When I carried the 24 foot panels up, I stopped at this point with each panel and waited for my heart rate and breathing to return to normal. Even though my share of a 40 footer was lighter than a 24 footer and we didn't have to take them as high or as far, I still needed this rest stop. Ellen didn't seem to need it. Part of it was that I had to carry my end 10 feet higher than she did, but a bigger part was probably because I am older than she and she is in better shape than I am.

Anyway, I set the pace and Ellen said that if we didn't carry up all the panels it would be because I wanted to quit, not because she wanted to.

We took a few fairly long breaks, one of them so that I could build a set of brackets and tie-downs for a second stack, and by about 5:10 we had all 31 panels stacked in two neat stacks on the roof. That represents 2170 pounds of steel carried as high as a five story building! I was a happy man. When we finished, we took quite a few pictures of us in various triumphant poses along with the stacks of panels. After we washed up and closed everything up, we drove to the 59'er Diner for dinner on the way home. We felt very good about what we had accomplished. From here on, I don't need any help at all in order to finish installing the roof.

7/5-6/00 I went up to the property for 2 days: Wednesday and Thursday.

This was a short week because of the 4th of July. I arrived at 11:30 and it was a nice cool 62 degrees. After moving in, I took one section of C-channel and a short section of the ridge metal up to the ridge. I needed to figure out exactly where to place the C-channel so that the ridge would fit right. I did a lot of measuring and fiddling around before I finally settled on exactly where the C-channel should go, then I screwed it down to the roof.

In the process, I saw a big carpenter ant go right through the mesh of the screen I had over the gap in the ridge. I was wondering how fine a mesh was needed to stop an ant, and now I knew for sure this screen was not going to do it. I still have plenty of fine mesh screen and I stapled a short piece over the coarse screen at the end of the ridge to make sure I had enough OSB showing in order to staple to it. It will work okay as long as I use a regular staple gun on one side instead of the hammer stapler. It won't take long to staple the extra screen on, but I decided to do it later so that I could get that first panel on.

I used a vise grip with a cord attached to it and a hook on the other end of the cord that I hooked over the C-channel on the other side to hold the panel after I slid it off the stack. The panel slid off pretty easily, but from now on I plan to put a couple small boards between the stack and the panel I want to slide off. The boards will keep the panel from scratching the panels in the stack, or at least that is my plan. I'll try it next time to see how it works.

Once the first panel was off the stack, it was pretty easy to slide it across the roof and into position. Since I had already drilled the pilot screw holes, it didn't take much time at all to align the panel, and then fasten it with 15 clips. That was encouraging and I felt good with that first panel in place.

Next I needed to install the rake metal to hold the outside edge of that first panel to the fascia. I fabricated a box end on a short section of rake so that it will box in the standing rib on the first panel. This one came out pretty well, so now I have three corners of the roof finished, each one done a little differently. That will be part of what will give the building character.

Before the end of the day, I got two more 10 foot sections of rake metal installed. There was a fairly good size frog on one of the pieces of rake metal when I pulled it out of the stack. I moved the frog to a section of ridge metal and he watched me work from there for the rest of the day.

Now that I followed CP's instructions on installing the rake, it worked out super slick. They snapped right into place and I didn't smear the caulking at all. Nothing like a little instruction and a little experience. The problem is that as soon as I get really good at it, I will be done doing it.

On Thursday morning, I decided that I wasn't happy with how the rake metal fit. Since the screws that fastened it to the fascia were nearly at the bottom of the metal, and since the standing rib of the first roof panel was right at the edge of the roof, it was fairly easy to move the rake by pushing sideways on it. After thinking about it, and doing a little experimenting, I decided to insert a 1x2 between the panel rib and the inside flange on the rake. A 1x2 fit in this space just perfectly so once it was in, the rake couldn't move and it felt super solid. I slid 1x2s down into the rake that I had installed the day before, and I put them in when I installed the rest of them. I finished installing the rake on the south gable eave before I left for home. It looks really good to me and I took a few pictures of it. I left for home at about 1:30.

7/8/00 Ellen and I went camping July 7, 8, and 9 at Lake Wenatchee State Park with Andrew, Dave and Janet, Bill and Lorrie, Cameron and Amanda. The whole bunch of us drove over to the property on Saturday, the 8th, so they could see the progress and so that Dave could get to a telephone line in order to do some work. He needed to IPL one of his AS/400s and get it running. The mosquitos were sort of annoying and most of the people were wearing shorts and short sleeves, so we didn't stay too long and we didn't go into the woods.

When I was showing some of them the stacks of panels that Ellen had helped me carry up, my heart came to a stop for a moment. I noticed that one of the stacks had broken loose and had slid down the roof. I think I must live right, because after sliding about 2 feet, the panels hit one of the logs that forms my upper walkway, and the log held the panels from going any farther. The end of the top one is crinkled a little bit, but it is not bad and I am sure I can straighten it out with no problem. Otherwise, there was no damage. When I realized how lucky I was, my heart started beating normally again and I felt really lucky. If it had been the center stack that had let go, instead of the stack on the edge of the roof, it would have slid 20 or 30 feet and then hit a tree or the ground. I'm sure it would have ruined every panel in the stack and would have been an expensive disaster.

I had fastened the 2x4 bracket with three screws into the OSB and the screws had sheared off. As quickly, and gently, as I could, I nailed a couple more boards to the roof snugly up against the bracket that was still holding the center stack. I don't know how close that bracket was to letting go, but now I am sure it will hold; I used a lot of nails this time. (I didn't have my screw gun with me.) I felt a strange mixture of relief, embarrassment, terror, wonder and amazement when I thought about what had happened and what might have happened. I guess all's well that ends well, but then again, the panels aren't all installed yet. Maybe I'd better pay a little closer attention to details until they are all snugly screwed down.

7/11-13/00 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 11:30 and it was already a very hot 80 degrees. A lot of the tar paper had pulled loose from the staples and in a couple places, the wind had blown the tar paper and flapped it up. I don't know why it did that; it sort of looked like the tar paper had shrunk. Anyway, I started out by stapling it all back into place. I wasn't sure if the footing would be secure if I didn't. Next I made a special spreader for the C-channel. The spreader holds the top flange of the C-channel up to give me more clearance to insert the panels.

When I was all ready, I went to work installing panels. They were so hot I couldn't touch them with my bare hands so I rubbed sweat off my face and smeared it on the panel where I wanted to grab it. There was plenty of sweat and more kept coming, so this method worked pretty well. In about three or four applications, the panel was cool enough so that I could grab it.

The panels are a lot heavier than the 24 footers so it was a lot harder pulling them up into the C-channel. But, except for one or two, I was able to do it by applying a little extra muscle.

On one of the early panels, the cord broke that was part of the sling keeping the panel from sliding off the roof. I had a hold of the panel at the time, so I kept it from sliding off. The cord was a fairly light cotton sash cord and I decided I needed to upgrade the sling. I made a new sling using a quarter inch Dacron rope and I used heavy galvanized wire to attach the rope to the vise grips and to make a hook to grab the C-channel. The only way it can fail now is for the vise grip to lose its grip or for the C-channel to bend back far enough to let go. I feel a lot more secure about it now.

I finished installing panels number 2 through 5 before I quit for the day. They look real nice and I felt pretty good about the job. I was a little disappointed, however, that it took me about 38 minutes on average to install one panel. At that rate, I could see that I couldn't complete the job this week.

Before I went in for the evening, I tried out a couple palm sanders I had bought. My old optometrist told me that palm sanders were the best way to remove the mildew, mold, and the graying from UV that had discolored the logs. I was pleased that both sanders worked very well and it shouldn't be a very tough job at all to spruce up the logs before I finish them.

On Wednesday morning, the roof was in the shade and it was delightful working up there when it was nice and cool. Of course, this lasted only until 11:00. After the seventh panel was installed, I needed to install another length of C-channel. I also took this time to install the finer mesh screen over the first half of the ridge. That went pretty well except when my stapler came apart and one part went sliding down the 24 foot roof into the bushes. Fortunately, it didn't take me long to find it, but each trip up and down the roof takes time and helps tire me out.

The eighth panel went smoothly, and then, to borrow a phrase from baseball, I made an error at the top of the ninth. The first indication of a problem was that I just couldn't pull the ninth panel up into the C-channel. It just wouldn't go the last 3/16ths of an inch. Fortunately, I have scaffolds down at the eaves so I just went down there and used a 3 lb. hammer and a short 2x4 to drive the panel home.

But then, back up at the ridge, the panel wouldn't snap down in place. I tried to figure out an explanation. The top of the panel was in the sun and very hot, and the bottom was nice and cool, so I figured it might have warped, but this didn't make sense. Then I went down to the bottom of the panel and found that it snapped into place very easily. I worked my way up the panel, snapping it down as I went but when I got near the top, it just wouldn't go down. I figured I needed a bigger hammer. I went back down to the scaffold and got my 3 lb. hammer and that short 2x4. I put the 2x4 on the standing rib and hit it with the hammer, and the rib bent over away from the panel. Then I put the 2x4 on edge against the panel alongside the rib and gave it a good whack with the hammer to see what happened. It acted exactly like something was under the panel; a little round pimple appeared in the surface of the panel.

I lifted up the raw edge of the panel and shoved the 2x4 under it so I could get down and look under the panel. What I saw made me feel very stupid. There sticking out of the last screw I had driven into the clip was my screwdriver bit. Quite often the bit will stay in the screw, but this was the first time it happened without my noticing it.

I retrieved my bit and the panel snapped nicely down into place. I used the 2x4 and hammer to bend the rib back straight and to flatten some of the wrinkles out of the panel. The little pimple is still there and will just add a little to the character of the building. Something to talk about. Fortunately, the paint in that area, although stretched a little, didn't look damaged, and fortunately since the 2x4 was directly over the bit, the bit didn't punch through the metal. It was still nice and waterproof.

I got the tenth panel installed by 12:30 and by then it was blistering hot. The panels all had salty patches where I had used my sweat to cool them to the touch.

It was nice and cool in the trailer so I took a long lunch break, including washing the breakfast dishes, and taking a little nap. I went back out to work about 3:00. In order to save me trips up and down the roof to drink, I took 64 oz. of Hydra Fuel with me. I also took a container of water and a wet towel so I could cool the panels a little easier. Panel installation went pretty smoothly until I got to the 13th panel. That is the one that goes around the chimney.

I used Curt Pritchard's advice and method to carefully measure and mark the panel for the hole. Then I cut the hole, bent the tabs up, dismantled the top of the chimney, and lifted the end of the panel up and down over the chimney. It worked out exactly according to plan, except that the hole wasn't round or elliptical. It had an irregular shape because of the bracket that holds the chimney in place. With the panel down flat, I aligned it at the eave with my hammer and 2x4, then I snapped the rib down and screwed in the clips. By that time it was time to quit for the day.

On Thursday morning, I caulked all the spaces between the panel and the chimney. Water should never get in there, but if it does, it won't be able to get through the roof. Next, I trimmed the width of the bottom of the cone so that it fit between the ribs of the roof panel. Somewhere in the process I accidentally knocked it off the roof and it got slightly bent when it hit the ground. I was lucky that the seam between the cone and the flat base didn't get broken. I retrieved it, straightened it, and tried it on for size. I found that it interfered with the clamping screw on the collar that holds the chimney. I got my hacksaw and cut the long end of the bolt off and then bent the tabs of the clamp back out of the way. This allowed the cone to hug the pipe in the right way, and I caulked and screwed it to the roof on top of the panel.

The next thing was to make a short piece of panel to go from the ridge to the cone. I made a bunch of careful measurements so I could cut the piece in the right shape. I started making the piece up on the roof but it was so hot and uncomfortable up there I decided it would be much better to work in the trailer. It was.

It was nice and cool in the trailer and I had a comfortable place to sit and a table top to work on. I transferred the measurements to the panel, drew the pattern for the part, and used the tin snips to cut the part out. Then I bent all the tabs up and the part looked real good. I felt pretty good for being an amateur metal smith.

When I took the part up on the roof to try it for size, I discovered that I had made it too short. I had forgotten to account for the overlap. There was nothing to do but go back down to the trailer and make another part. (When I told CP about this later, he said, "Sure, you just wanted to go back to the trailer!") I made the second part, but when I bent the tabs, I bent them in the wrong direction. After I realized my mistake, I bent the tabs all back in the right direction. It felt like the metal was still strong and the paint hadn't cracked, so I don't think I did much if any damage to the metal as a result of this mistake.

This part fit a lot better and will work just fine. By the time I tried it on for size, it was time to put things away and get ready to go home. I left about 1:45 feeling pretty good about the week's work.

7/18-20/00 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

Fortunately, I got a late start and didn't arrive until 1:15. I was late because I took time to write a letter to Dr. Dick before I left. I say fortunately because I was delayed long enough to see that the workmen who were re-doing the water service to our house were about to hook the water up to the old retired galvanized pipe which now would only pour water into my crawl space at city water pressure. I told them where my new copper pipe was and got them to change their plans before I got under way. I was really lucky to avert what could have been a disaster.

It was a hot 80 degrees when I started working. I started out by finishing up the flashing around the chimney. With a little bending, the new part I had made fit perfectly and I caulked and screwed it down into place. Then I caulked around the top of the cone and tightened the storm collar around that. Then I caulked all the exposed seams around the chimney.

With the chimney done, the rest of the panels would be routine with no complications. I installed the 14th and 15th panels without much of a problem, except that I had to use my wet towel to cool them down wherever I needed to touch them. I was anxious to get that 15th panel down since it was the last one in the first stack. I wanted to see if the bracket holding that stack showed any signs of failure. After the panel was in place, I went down to the scaffold and dismantled the bracket. To my horror, I found that one of the three screws fastening it to the roof had sheared in two. I don't know when that happened, or how close the remaining screws were to failing, but I was sure that the extra cleats I had nailed on had probably averted a big disaster. Again, I felt very lucky, and very stupid.

Next, I installed the first section of the ridge cap. I didn't really know what I was doing and this section turned out to be a pretty hard job. The biggest part of the difficulty was that the roof was covered with some kind of greenish dust that comes off the trees, and that made the roof so slick that I couldn't stand on it. I spent a lot of time straddling the ridge with my feet or my knees on opposite sides of the ridge. Then to keep them from slipping down, I had to continually keep the muscles tensed on the inside of my thighs. To add to the difficulty, the roof was so hot that I couldn't touch it. After a little of this, my legs were fatigued and shaking and I was sweating like a pig.

I didn't know exactly how to get the ridge in place. I tried engaging one side over the C-channel and then bear down on the ridge trying to get the other side to spread enough to engage the other C-channel. After a lot of sweating and struggling with it, I could get part of it to engage, but I couldn't get the whole thing to snap in place. When one place would snap in, another place would snap out. I finally gave up on this method.

What worked was to use the cut I had made in one C-channel in order to retrieve my screwdriver bit. I engaged the opposite side of the ridge and then started the near side of the ridge into this cut. Then I slid the ridge cap over both C-channels toward the gable. This worked - - until the ridge came up against the rake metal. For some reason, the rafters on that end of the roof didn't come out in perfect alignment. They were about a quarter of an inch higher than the rest. This was now causing me a problem. I solved it by using a hammer and a short 2x4 to drive the ridge up against the rake. Then I used a screwdriver to lift the ridge at the point where it was jammed up against the rake. Then I used the hammer and 2x4 to drive it up over this point and jam it into the next point of contact. Then with the screwdriver, I lifted it over this obstruction. And then on to the next. Each of these iterations meant a 10 foot walk back and forth on that hot slippery ridge. I needed to be at one end to do the pounding and at the other end to tease the metal up over the rake. After four or five of these trips, the ridge was finally in place. I pounded the tabs I had made down over the fascia side of the rake to make a nice looking corner. The little swoop up at the end of the ridge is barely noticeable and shouldn't be any problem.

That was enough for the day. Before I went in for the night, I checked the blackberry patch and discovered some ripe berries and a whole bunch of red ones. There should be a lot of ripe ones next week.

On Wednesday morning, it was a real pleasure to install the panels. There were no more complications and I was getting the hang of how to install them with the minimum amount of effort. The trick was to reduce the number of times I had to climb up and down the roof. That was what was so tiring and so hard on my feet. I got the 16th through the 19th panels installed by 1:30 including a short break to visit with Larry who came by to check the progress. By that time the shade was long gone and I was hungry and not feeling too well.

I had a headache, a couple of aspirins, lunch, and a nap - - in that order. I still wasn't feeling all that well when I went out, so I started out by picking about 20 or so ripe blackberries. Then I went back up and installed the 20th and 21st panels in the 80 degree heat. I worked pretty slowly because I still wasn't feeling too well and there was no shade. I drank a lot of Endurox, or some such product. I had bought the health food store out of Hydra Fuel, and this new product looked like it contained the same sort of chemicals. It tasted a lot different and I wasn't sure it was going to do the job. I went in for the night feeling plenty beat.

On Thursday morning, I felt really good and strong. Maybe that Endurox works after all. It was nice and cool again in the shade and now I was almost in a rhythm installing panels. I installed the 22nd through the 26th panels before I packed up and left for home. Just five panels left to go! I had to leave a little early in order to meet an appointment to see about getting a new bed for Mom. I left a little after 1:00.

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