When did roofs get so high?

[Charlie Velasquez]

As a teen I worked summer part-time jobs as a house painter and roofing helper. As an early homeowner I had replaced two roofs; one was a two story house, the other was a 1 1/2 story house. Was never bothered hauling shingles or dragging panels.

Today I was on a single story 5/12 roof, bare OSB decking, and had butterflies the whole time.

67 is not that old. Is there some mathematical function that makes a roof get proportionally steeper as one ages?

[Paul F Franklin]

I'm the same way...I think it is a combination of some degradation of balance and agility along with increased awareness of the consequences of falling. Roofing is one of the very few jobs that I hire out. I will do minor repairs, etc, but not bigger jobs.

[Jamie Buxton]

Oddly enough, you actually get smarter as you get older.

[Günter VögelBerg]

This is typical architecture in my home town. Roofers make a lot of money.
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[Pat Barry]

We know that falling gets more likely and dangerous the older we get.

[Kris Cook]

As a teen I worked summer part-time jobs as a house painter and roofing helper. As an early homeowner I had replaced two roofs; one was a two story house, the other was a 1 1/2 story house. Was never bothered hauling shingles or dragging panels.

Today I was on a single story 5/12 roof, bare OSB decking, and had butterflies the whole time.

67 is not that old. Is there some mathematical function that makes a roof get proportionally steeper as one ages?

All good answers so far, I think.

I am 10 years behind you but I just hired out the roof on my shop construction. 5/12 garage roof was probably doable but the 7/12 on the second story seems exponentially steeper. I was definitely tied off while decking and installing underlayment on the roof. I had the roofer install permanent anchors at both ends of the second floor ridge.

[Bruce Page]

Charlie, you're a lot tougher than I am! I'm 68 and quit going up on the roof a couple of years ago when I discovered that my balance wasn't as good as it used to be. That's what kids are for!

[Kris Cook]

This is typical architecture in my home town. Roofers make a lot of money.
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Gunter - I am guessing you never have to shovel snow off of roofs where you live.

[roger wiegand]

She Who Must Be Obeyed says no more roof for me-- she looks askance at anything taller than the 8 ft step ladder.

[Tom M King]

I'm 69, and still work on roofs, but they're scaffolded up to the edge (or other double safetied systems), and I charge double my normal rate for working on a roof. That keeps away most of the roof jobs, but I still get as many as I want, which is not many unless an interesting one comes up.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Be 72 in November. In September, when it cools down, will replace roof back section of house. Shingles are original from 1980. Worst part to me was hauling shingles up, until my dad showed me a trick, when building house. Take extension ladder that will extend past roof line by about 4 feet. Attach a pulley to top rung of ladder. Sting a rope through pulley so a helper can pull a bundle of shingles up between house and ladder. Just as shingles arrive at roof level, push ladder away from roof, allowing shingles to go past roof line, then return ladder to rest against roof. Then helper lowers shingle bundle onto roof. Beats the heck out of toting them on shoulder up a ladder. In 1980, our 72 pound son was pulling 70 pound bundles of shingles this way. One word of caution: NEVER TIE LIFTING ROPE AROUND YOU WAIST!!! The addition we put on in 1995 has a roof hatch that can be accessed from stairway into attic.

[Tom M King]

The only shingles I do, any more, are Cypress shingles that we make, or standing seam metal.
http://historic-house-restoration.com/images/CIMG1808.JPG

[Bill Dufour]

I do not think woods shingles are legal anymore here.

[Bob Glenn]

Tom, beautiful roof! Always nice to see quality work.

[Terry Wawro]

I know what you mean. In my younger days I could climb all over a roof with nary a care. Now I'm about 59 and I know my balance is not what it used to be. I'll still get on a low pitch roof but carefully and not too happily.

[Jim Becker]

I'm only 62, but I no longer appreciate heading up to the roof for anything...I think they do actually feel higher/steeper!

[Joe Wood]

Tom, tell us about those hip caps, they look to be 1 piece? I also see a scarf type joint on the right sides, with a scarf on the adjoining shingle,

I've never seen that before! Is that your own technique?

[Tom M King]

That's called a Fantail Hip. That design does not need an applied extra ridge cap. They were common on 18th to mid 19th Century finer houses in this part of the country. In this part of the country, almost every nice house had a Cypress shingle roof. That new one is a reproduction replacement on what we found on that museum house.

The reason that there were any old houses to restore in Colonial Williamsburg is that the ones left still had their Cypress shingle roofs keeping water out.

Here's a picture of what we found under a Terne tin roof that we know was applied in 1982. The Cypress shingles had lasted almost 150 years. The old shingles still had some life in them, but had suffered damage from a tree growing up against the house, and people who didn't know what they were doing putting up a TV antenna.

Exposed nails, and all, these served as the roof, with no visible signs of leakage below, for 150 years. They're applied on open purlins. The life has been engineered out of wooden shingle roofs these days, with solid sheathing, tar paper, and even rows of tar paper between the rows. One installed like that will last maybe 35 years.

Here's the old one. I made a little display inside that museum house with a section of the old fantail hip.

This is the kind of stuff I do for a living.

Edited to add: I forgot to answer the question: They are not one piece. I made the new shingles longer than the originals, but with the same 7" exposure. Fasteners are only in the center, but my longer shingles allowed two in line, along the centerline, with none exposed. I used stainless 2-1/2, and 2" staples. More pictures on my website

http://historic-house-restoration.com/images/oldhip1.jpg

[Joe Wood]

Wow I completely missed seeing those aren't hip caps, that does look nice and sleek.

do you have any pics showing the individual ones, so I can see where they're not a one piece?

you do some nice old- timey work Tom!

[glenn bradley]

Residual Self-image is a problem for many of us. The older I get, the better I was syndrome. The small muscle reactions that provide what we call "good balance" require near-constant training. As we age we do less and these skills and strengths diminish. My favorite phenomena is that both "down" and "up" can get farther away as we age ;-)

[Rick Potter]

Charley,

To see if you are really having a balance issue, try standing on one foot and see how long you can do it. That's how I knew my balance was bad. At 76, I can only do it a few seconds...like 5.

At about my late 60's, I fell off a couple ladders, not too far, but enough to hurt for weeks. The Doc told me to stay off ladders. I try to but sometimes need to use them, and I am very careful..this morning I went up an 8' stepladder and really hugged it.

Don't know why I lost it, but it just got bad over time. Ironically, I was a fireman for almost 35 years, and obviously spent a lot of time up high on roofs etc. (fell through 3). About the same time the Doc told me to stay down, I needed to put a new vent cover on my travel trailer with a flat roof. I got up there, felt really uncomfortable (body warning me?) and got the hell off. My boy came over and installed the vent cover.

That is when it really sank in that there was a problem.

I practice standing on one foot while next to a chair, or walking on low curbs. It helps a little bit.

[Lee Schierer]

When did roofs get so high? About 8 years ago right after the ladder I was climbing decided to head south while I was 14 feet up on the north end. I also discovered that you can't cling to the side of a wooden barn with your finger nails. Now all jobs that require being more than 8 feet off the ground get done by someone else.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Management has forbidden me to go up on anything higher than a step ladder. My heavy duty 24 foot extension ladder hangs unhappily and lonely in the garage. I was a rock climber and mountaineer in my younger days and being 1000 feet up on a cliff never bothered me, but I was always suspicious of ladders. Cliffs rarely fall down, ladders are a different story.

[Lisa Starr]

You folks are all smart to "listen" to the nagging discomfort when on a roof. My DH (age 56) still makes repairs to all types of steep/difficult to access roofs. He uses appropriate safety equipment and in some situations insists on having a spotter on the ground to help control the ladder while getting up there to tie it off. He has passed on a couple of roof repairs the last couple of years, as he believes you don't belong anywhere you are uncomfortable. Any of you choosing to get on a roof, be safe.

[Tom M King]

I don't leave the ground without a safety.

Speaking of high ones, this one is 26 feet to the soffits, chimney is 43 feet tall, and that back el is steeper than a 12 in 12. I didn't install those metal shingles, but the owner wanted me to fix a leak in that valley.

A tree work throw line pulls the bull rope over the ridge with a pulley on the end, and the safety rope in the pulley. The line over the roof with the pulley on it is tied to a tractor on the other side of the house. That was used to start with as I went up the lower ladder to put a large stainless eye screw into a solid framing member. After that eyescrew was installed, that ladder was tied to it, and used to raise the second ladder with a rope. Once that second ladder was in place, it was also tied to that eye screw.

The eye screw is used to "fly" the tops of the ladders down as the bottom end is walked away from the house. It's many times easier to lower any length ladder like that, than the normal way.

Any of these old houses I work on have those eye screws left in place for such reasons, as well as raising, and lowering Alum-A-Pole scaffolding poles.

The roof ladder has big shepherds hooks on the top that will jump over any ridge as it's pulled up by a rope from the other side. Always with safety harness on, the roof ladder is flipped after I get up there. Roof ladders are made for any steep roof I don't already have one for, so that the steps/seats are level.

The 3800 pound trailer is parked where it is as a belay point. My helper is big, and strong enough that he can lower me down on his own, if absolutely necessary, but uses a GriGri that I rigged.

Never leave the ground without a safety, even if it means setting them up takes 90 percent of the time for the job.

That picture says 2012, so I was only 62 when I did that job.

[Günter VögelBerg]

Love the wood shingles. I do not believe they meet code here. A few years ago my wife and I had a new asphalt roof put on, but i think I'd like a metal roof for the next one. They're not very common here for some reason. I too avoid getting on roofs. I'll DIY just about anything except roofing.

[Andrew Seemann]

Somewhere around 45, the 8' step ladder and I fell backwards because I didn't have enough slope leaned up against the porch roof, which I knew not to do. Had I been one step higher, I would have enough fall time to twist and land on my side in the soft grass. Instead, I landed hard on my heel on the cement sidewalk. After the trip to Urgent Care, I realized that I only have so many falls off ladders and roofs left in me, and that I needed to ration them out more slowly.

I'm kind of odd about heights. I'm fearless to the point of foolhardiness to about 12 feet, and then absolutely terrified of anything higher than that. I think it is because the greenhouses and rafters I worked on as a kid were not much higher than 12 feet, and I was constantly climbing all over them.

[Mike Ontko]

67 is not that old. Is there some mathematical function that makes a roof get proportionally steeper as one ages?

As a kid, I used to jump to the ground from the bottom edge of a roof on just about any 1-story structure. Don't ask why I felt the need to test this ability. In the Navy, I did work at sea on 50' antenna masts (pic below), and at that time I didn't seem to have too much of a problem with heights. I've done a small amount of roof work on two of my houses and one garage without too much discomfort, but I don't seem to feel as sure footed in high spaces as I used to. I think it has something to do with the loss of our ability to bounce as we get older. Either that or it's because as grandads, we tend to carry more change in our pockets and that can weigh us down more, leaving us more susceptible to the effects of gravity.

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[Rich Engelhardt]

I don't go up on anything higher than the bottom of a 2nd story window....

Oddly though, I parachuted - not once, but twice, off the wing strut of a cessna....
Only thing I can think of is that it's so high up, when you look down, there's no point of reference as to how high you are. It's like standing w/your feet together and looking at the floor - those crumbs on the floor are actually cars and trucks.

The only time it got to be a problem was at the end of the fall when I got to tree top level - -that gave an indication of how high I was...

[Lee DeRaud]

The flip side of this conversation is working under cars.

Had a conversation a couple years back with a guy telling me I could replace the clutch on my Corvette without a lift, just jackstands. Took me about five seconds to come up with the three factors that prevent that:
1. I have a vivid imagination,
2. I have a touch of claustrophobia, and
3. I have a zip-code in earthquake country.

On topic, SWMBO gets nervous every time I get on top of the patio cover, either to wash upstairs windows or repaint. It's not the ladder that bothers her: somehow she thinks that I'm going to fall to the ground from the middle of a 15'x15' platform.

[Flamone LaChaud]

Ever since I was 8, I could crawl on any roof, just about any pitch . . . as long as I was at least 5' from any edge. As long as I had that buffer - I was good. But anytime I had to get close to the edge - that lizard part of my brain could already feel that sickening, floating feeling as I would go off of the roof. Also have problems with rollercoasters, being at the window in a skyscraper - or even seeing it on TV.

[Chuck Saunders]

Not sure about roofs being higher but I have noticed that the ground seems to be further down whenever I drop things.
Chuck

[Charlie Velasquez]

Not sure about roofs being higher but I have noticed that the ground seems to be further down whenever I drop things.
Chuck

On my 65th birthday my son gave me a BD card that said something like:
”I’m at that age that whenever I drop something I stare at it and take a few seconds to decide if I really need it or not...”