worriedWith the forward section of the house now mostly covered, it was time to start preparing to move toward the back. Lisa used the leaf blower to clear any new accumulations of stuff from the roof and started nailing sections of lath to the roof. These strips of wood are the main anchors for the roof fabric, which she staples into place. My job includes sending up new bundles of lath when needed and helping her get the strips placed straight, since I can see the line from the ground; it's not easy for her to line them up from roof level.
Lisa decided to put the new runs closer together than the earlier runs, to provide more anchors and to make it easier to overlap the roof fabric. The sections nearest the edge of the roof are the most difficult to attach. It was nerve-racking to watch her dangling by the safety harness with one leg sticking off the roof as she nailed the boards down through the holes in the strips that she had drilled while she was on the ground.
After laying down the strips, Lisa came back down, rested for a while, then took what was left of a partially-used roll of roof fabric back up top. As we rather expected, it wasn't long enough to completely cover a full section. She then used a staple gun to attach it to the lath and directly to the shingles, although that's not as secure an attachment due to the deteriorated condition of the shingles. This should hold until she can get roofing compound on it to make it stick to the roof surface. Fortunately, there was no wind at all, nor do we expect anything but light breezes for the next few days.
Below and to the left of the new cloth, you can see a spot where more shingles fell off, exposing another hole in the roof. She'll probably need to get some extra roof patching to cover just that spot as part of today's festivities.
After two hours, Lisa was worn out and gave up for the day. Although it's somewhat cooler in the evenings, there's still sun beating down on the roof until nearly 8 PM, and it gets really hot really fast up there. She berated herself for not laying down more fabric and putting down a layer of Gray Goo. I countered by pointing out that the work is hard, stressful, and dangerous, and that she simply can't go quickly or she'll get injured. In this case, slow and safe is far better than quick and dead.
Plan for today is for her to patch the newly-opened hole and to try to get roofing cloth down over the rest of the newly-lathed sections of the roof. If she can somehow get as far as putting down some Gray Goo, that would be a bonus, but I don't expect it to happen today.
As I understand it, Lisa wants to get the new sections completely covered and gooped, then, when they've dried, move the ladders and ropes toward the back of the roof (lined up with the new sections on which she's currently working). Then she should be able to fill in the gap you can see in the pictures above with another sheet of roof fabric, and then goop the area between the front of the house and the current new section. This is still an ambitious goal to accomplish before I leave a week from Saturday, but it does seem like we might be able to do it if the weather stays good and our energy doesn't run out.