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| Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved. |
I could only watch from below. My illness has made my balance so shaky that I've had several falls in recent weeks on flat surfaces alone; there's no way in hell I'm going up that skinny extension ladder onto the roof. Wings climbed up there with the guys and snagged these shots today.
For those who've never seen this, here's what the process entails:
Apparently BRAI stands for "bitumen rolled [something-or-other]," an essentially, it's like a gigantic roll of dried tar in a compound with something a bit like a composite shingle. The tar substance is the bitumen, and I'm sure it's an environmental horror, but some things simply aren't practical anymore, particularly when you're having to balance what's available and doable with both short- and long-term costs and an environment of extreme weather.
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| Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved. |
At any rate, the rolls are dry when taken out of the package. The guys set a roll on the roof, fire up the propane torch, and hold the torch just past the roll as they slowly unroll it. The torch melts the tar straight onto the roof, and gives it a comprehensive seal. José's manning the torch, using the 1X2 to control the speed at which it unrolls and keep the application consistent.
Here, Buffy's rolling it straight up the sides of the roof (there's a bit of a curvature to it), and tamping it into place so that it can be sealed just as hermetically. This is the big advantage BRAI has over sheet metal (or ProPanel) in this environment: There are zero gaps to allow water to seep in and start doing damage. If, years from now, the tar dries out sufficiently in a patch for it to start lifting, they simply retorch it. If that ever happens, it'll be a very long time down the road, though.
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| Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved. |
We had a perfect day for it today: completely clear, air perfectly still, temps cool to warm but not hot. They'll finish it up tomorrow morning, then get stuff ready for Monday, when they begin installing the netting and metal lath preparatory to plastering.
And then there's the glass.
Buffy's getting some estimates for us out of Albuquerque, but we'd rather go local if it's possible, and whatever we might save on the price tag would probably get negated by the delivery costs anyway. But it's still good to have options in your back pocket. In the meantime, a local guy is coming out to spec it tomorrow morning. One of the big considerations is time — how long it will take for them to get the larger windows in, since they'll likely have to be special orders. But that means, at a minimum, a hefty deposit soon; we likely only have about one more week of this kind of unseasonably perfect weather remaining to us, and we need to get the plastering done.
Which means we continue to need shares of our YouCaring page, particularly via the widgets provided. Especially helpful is the widget code from the box at lower right, which produces this:
We also need shares of Wings's site, and just as consistently, of course. And if you're planning on commissioning one or more holiday gifts, time is getting a lot shorter than any of us wants to acknowledge; now's the time to get hold of me so I can get your order into the pipeline on his workbench.
Many thanks to everyone for your help thus far. I am fighting a bug right now, so I'm extra-slow, but I promise not to breathe in your direction, even over the Internet. In the meantime, I still have to push us through this multi-phase stage before winter socks us in, so I need to keep at it.
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner
I don't know that bitumen is that horrible - it actually does occur in nature at times, and was used to some extent in mummification.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that part's about done, and that the weather is helping out so far.