There are thousands of homes built by companies like Pulte in this part of town circa 1994-1997. Their margins were very thin because houses were so cheap. These companies used the lousiest of building materials they could get away with. Lots of these houses now need new roofs, and their owners may not even know it. Houses with rotted decking. I think my house is in the first wave. There will be plenty of opportunities here for roofing contractors over the next two years.I have a great deal of respect for the men doing the actual labor. I couldn't do it, and I doubt any of you could do it.
12 comments:
I helped my father reroof our house in new orleans when I was a teenager. It was so unbearably hot I actually studied harder that next year of high school.
This afternoon I was ready to go on strike because our Italian client's office was an uncomfortable 82 degrees. so if you see me up on a roof now, look for the escaped tiger down below.
I don't know Lou, I did roofing one whole summer when I was a teenager (in the Northeast, not Houston). It wasn't fun but it was not impossible by any means. It was nowhere near as tough as masonry, in my humble opinion.
On a lark, after they left tonight I picked up one of those packs of shingles. I'm guessing it was 70-80 pounds. I watched them hoist these packs on their shoulders and climb up the ladder and then squat/crawl to the second story roof. Over and over.
It was 96 today, with a dewpoint of 68. In other words, you break out into a sweat laying down outside under a shade tree within a minute. I went to Walmart and bought them a bunch of those vitamin water drinks and iced them down in a cooler for them. They came equipped with cold water, plus a microwave that they had plugged in to an outlet on my back patio so they could heat their lunches, but I wanted to do SOMETHING for them.
As a teenager? I think I could do it. I worked the summer when I was 16 at K-Mart in the garden section and spent most of my day loading bags of mulch into people's cars. Never gave the Houston weather a second thought. It was a great job for a 16 year old kid! The managers always treated us well because no one else wanted the job and we got to BS a lot when customer's weren't around.
Sheetrock? I'd have to agree, especially down here in new houses. They're ovens until the air conditioning equipment is installed and operating.
Definitely want to know how these guys perform. I also live on the west side and need a roof. $5500 sounds like a bargain, especially for doing the job in August. I did roofing for all of 3 hours in July when I was ~25 (Habitat for Humanity house). Never again. Talk about reaffirming my decision to get a college education!
I certainly couldn't do it... but then again, I need to study a 50-page booklet on how to get out of bed in the morning. :-p
Makes you wonder how it all got done before the Mexicans showed up and took over the job. But it did get done. So did all the other nasty work this time of year. Maybe not till fall, though, for roofing. I worked at the ship channel for a college summer job years ago cleaning out (shoveling) storage tanks at Portland Cement. HOT down in the hole! But we could do it 9 hours a day. Most of us could do those kinds of things when we were younger.
Makes you wonder how it all got done before the Mexicans showed up and took over the job.
I realize this is a very sensitive issue with many people, including me. The answer is yes, Americans used to do this kind of work. But as I asked the other day, how much would a white/black/American of Hispanic descent demand to do this type of work? I mean a person with a stable work record who you can count on to show up every morning at 7:00.
In south Texas or places like Phoenix this time of year I'll bet that a lot of houses wouldn't get repaired. People wouldn't be able to afford the labor costs. How much would YOU demand to do this type of work? Let's say $30/hr. That would make such basic home repairs unaffordable to a vast swath of people.
Me, I am a fan of all people with a strong work ethic. I only wish the Feds would balance things. I'd open the doors wide to monied, educated people who want to flee their local hellholes. Damn the quotas. Maybe it's because Houston welcomes immigrants and I am surrounded by them, so my opinion is different. Immigrants are the lifeblood of my city and I want more of them because they also create opportunity. My boss is an immigrant.
i DID INDUSTRIAL INSULATION ATOP BLACK TAR CAPPED OIL TANKS....sorry for the caps there....until I was twenty and it sucked but was pleasant at the same time.
Concur on the imiggrant POV Lou.
Paul writes,
Last year we cut off, shingles and plywood about a hundred squares. We did it with skills saws, a case of blades and dropped it into a dumpster. Then the two of us sheathed it with 3/4 inch plywood, stuck bitch-a-thane and then nailed on architects. My partner is 41 and I'm 51. I'm Irish, he's a Scot.
It was for 7 roofs on little a public elderly housing project that was designed and built to fail. The roof was so closed up that the plywood rotted/delaminated. You couldn't walk in between the two foot trusses with out punching through here or there.
We couldn't boom truck the plywood or bundles. So they were dropped and we used a scissor lift for, about, either eight bundles or sheets at a time.
It was a Massachusetts state/public works/union/prevailing wage job, so we got 48 an hour. We did a good job, but the rest of the building is just breaking down, rotting below us. The poorly installed vinyl sheathing is just channeling water into the wood sheathing.
Good money after bad.
By the way, I’m now trimming out a four million dollar community center in Truo, that is falling apart faster than we can finish it. Again, poor design, community design cluster love fest, and resigned tradesmen that no one listens to anyways. I’m getting near 300 an hour. Actually 50, but the pace is so slow, and productivity so low, that I only do about an hour and a half of my usual free market pace, that it works out to 300.
Your tax dollars at waste.
Paul,
That's backbreaking work, albeit lucrative. Could you do it when the roof temperature is at least 130 degrees?
Paul,
No. I think even in my best days, my flounder white northern heritage is out of warrantee at 105 or so.
In the early 80's I was in the 82nd and made a jump into Panama. We got there around 10 in the morning and when the doors opened and the heat came in, I knew I was in trouble.
Down on the ground the temp was about 105 and heading up, and near 100% humidity. Not a breath of a breeze either. I thought I was having heat stroke and couldn't move much than a few yards at a time with all the equipment. It made the hottest day in North Carolina feel like a Swiss alpine meadow.
Also last year I did garage for an old customer in West Palm, in the summer. Heat into the low hundreds. I lost about 15 pounds and could never drink enough water. I bought a bone-fishing hat with floppy sides and kept it wet all the time. I'd have to lie down after a shower and have a air condition chill bath for an hour or so to recover.
By the way, in Florida, roofers start under lights at around 6 AM and quit at 1. They also use conveyers that they back up to the house and shoot the shingles up.
I like the Latin male worker. They are fine workers, good spirited. Work is hard enough without having to listen to someone bitch and talk the hardness of the job up. When I built the garage, I would drive out to Indiantown and pick and drop the guys off. They kept their neighborhood clean. I first got the guys at a local 7/11, but from there on picked them up and dropped them off. They told me they have to give the labor boss a cut of their pay, and then there is the guy they drive in with. And then they just wait for work. I sort of felt sorry for them. It’s kind of out of a Dickens novel. I’m sure they were illegal. But they were good guys to me, and did good work once they understood what we were doing.
All the hard working construction guys I know are over 40. We were animals when we were younger. We used to compete to see who could do the most squares, lay the most plywood and then drink massive amounts of beer. And, in my day, we didn’t have no stinking air gun! (OK, I’ll stop)
Hottest construction job I ever had was putting sheetrock up in the attic as firebreak between apartments.
Balancing on the open ceiling joist while holding the sheetrock in place and trying to nail it was...challenging.
Post a Comment