No hanging around here

The roofers arrived at 07:50am this morning. Considering that they live over an hour away, we were impressed. “No time to talk or drink tea!” they declared when offered a cuppa first thing.
Within an hour they had the stone ridge cappings off, and had already stripped the slate off one quarter of the back of the roof.

The lad (who looked like the younger brother of one of the two roofers) did a good job in getting the slates down and stacked into the back of our trailer. Because, if you have a new car, just 15 weeks old, why not use it rally stylee to move your old roof down the sheep field the other side of your fence so the slates can be easily thrown over the fence to be nearer their final resting place – under the hedge as ‘mulch’ to stop the weeds, and on the slate garden that we are in the process of creating? Beats hours of back-breaking wheelbarrowing.

One of the other firms who quoted for the work thought he would re-use the existing slate. Looking at it, it’s third hand at least already, chipped, discoloured and generally disintegrating, so it was a good job we didn’t choose him. And, despite not using new slates, he was £7K + VAT more than the ones we chose!

The nasty old Velux in the upstairs bathroom came out with a bit of brute force:

We didn’t imagine that they would get that far today, so had only 10 minutes to get the bathroom cleared, the electric mirror cling-wrapped and the bath protected with big sheets of cardboard and a tarpaulin. It’s a good job we can think and work fast!

By 2pm, the three of them had stripped all the old slates, felt and battens off, and installed new breathable membrane and new battens.
Apparently it is now weathertight, and this will be tested tomorrow as it is meant to drizzle all of the working day. There is no other rain at all in the forecast until Wednesday week, and if today is anything to go by, they will be long gone by then.
Now, if only all our workmen could have been this good… I guess it’s called saving the best til last.