The rooftop of our 30×30 garage at this project house was far from desirable. It was clear when we looked at it, that it would need to be replaced. The closing process to purchase this house was long, so although we made our offer in September, we could not close until December!

Rooftop Nightmare Saga

(The remainder of this post was written by my husband who lived through the rooftop nightmare).

It was an unusually warm December day in Michigan. The weathered, moss covered roof was begging to be replaced. I took some measurements, bought some supplies, borrowed some tools, and dove right into tearing off the old roof. Removal was going great, less the mess I was creating in the yard below. There was one section of roof that was very soft, and once the shingles were off, I could see why.

The roof must have had a vent pipe running up through it that it leaked over the years. The wood underneath was completely rotted. Fortunately, it was an easy fix with a 4’x8′ piece of plywood that my wife transported on the roof of her SUV.

With the tear off complete, it was time to nail down the new shingles. I am no roofer, but I did my research online, in books, and watched some online videos. I felt I had the necessary skill set to get the job done.

Everything went on nice and smooth and by the next day, I had my new roof finished.

Then came the winds…

The garage sits on the back of the property with nothing but wide open fields behind it to the west and south with Lake Michigan being only 4 miles west. If you are not familiar with West Michigan weather, it almost always comes out of the west.

Upon returning to the house after the storm, we were greeted by roof shingles all over the yard, driveway, and even the neighbor’s yard. It was a DISASTER! I could have cried seeing all my hard work in shambles and flapping in the breeze. All I could do was clean up the mess, purchase more supplies, and try again.

My repair job looked good and I was feeling satisfied with a job well done. Then a week or so later…..another high wind storm. The damage was not as severe as the first time, and I was more mad than sad. When I fixed it this time, I used extra nails and lots of roof tar. I even left a tarp with bricks over the worst section that kept blowing off.

By January, we finally got some snow which was a good thing as far as my precious roof was concerned. The snow started melting by mid March and what do you know, another wind storm. These winds were gusting between 60-70 mph. As you can probably guess, I lost another handful of shingles off the roof. Fortunately, I still had left overs from the last time I had fixed it. So up I went, back up the ladder with shingles, hammer, nails, and more roof tar to fix the roof one last time.

The roof was finally fixed…once and for all!

Moral of the story is: do not repair or put on a new  roof in the middle of winter!