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Thread: When did roofs get so high?

  1. #16
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    Mar 2003
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    SE PA - Central Bucks County
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    65,685
    I'm only 62, but I no longer appreciate heading up to the roof for anything...I think they do actually feel higher/steeper!
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  2. #17
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    Mar 2006
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    San Diego area
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    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?
    Last edited by Joe Wood; 07-25-2019 at 10:36 AM.
    WoodsShop

  3. #18
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    Feb 2014
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    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
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    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

    Last edited by Tom M King; 07-25-2019 at 12:30 PM.

  4. #19
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    Mar 2006
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    San Diego area
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    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!
    WoodsShop

  5. #20
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    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 ;-)
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  6. #21
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    Mar 2003
    Location
    Upland CA
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    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.
    Rick Potter

    DIY journeyman,
    FWW wannabe.
    AKA Village Idiot.

  7. #22
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    Feb 2003
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    McKean, PA
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    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.
    Last edited by Lee Schierer; 07-25-2019 at 4:01 PM.

  8. #23
    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.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Waterford, PA
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    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.

  10. #25
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    Feb 2014
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    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
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    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.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by Tom M King; 07-25-2019 at 5:51 PM.

  11. 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.

  12. #27
    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.

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Duvall, WA
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charlie Velasquez View Post
    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.

    USNS H H Hess (T-AGS 38).jpg
    Last edited by Mike Ontko; 07-25-2019 at 8:57 PM.

  14. #29
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    Nov 2006
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    NE Ohio
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    6,983
    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...
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  15. #30
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Anaheim, California
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    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.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
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