I am just finishing up roofing the back room. Today I ripped off two layers of old shingles, and while doing that, happened to see these calculations in pencil on the original roof boards. (You may have to click on the image to enlarge it in order to see the writing.) The house was built around 1910 or 1920, I believe, but the small back room was added on later - perhaps in the 1950's. So here I was, face to face, so to speak, with the carpenters who built the back room. It is hard to explain the feeling exactly, but I loved the connection, such as it is, between someone who built this, and me, who is rebuilding part of it, sort of, all these years later. There is a wonderful Robert Frost poem, titled "The Tuft of Flowers." I will let you read it on your own, but the key line is: "Men work together, I told him from the start, whether they work together or apart."
2 comments:
Very cool. Is the clear plastic a barrier used at that time rather than tar paper?
Joan
No, regular tar paper goes down on the roof before shingles are added. What you are seeing, sticking out of the old shingles, is a plastic strip that is on the back of shingles for shipping. All shingles have a sticky tar strip which, in the heat, softens and sticks to the shingle above, to keep the wind from lifting shingles. While being shipped, the plastic makes sure that the tar strip doesn't stick to a shingle while in the package.
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