Roofus Novus, Part 1

Our house is currently shrouded in scaffolding and, as of half an hour ago, only had half a roof. <3 took a picture yesterday evening...

The story is that we have an old prefab house which still has its original asbestos roof. Asbestos cement isn't anything like as nasty as its more often worried about cousins, but it is still unpleasant stuff, doesn't look nice, and is brittle so there is a constant worry that it will develop a big gaping hole in the next gale. <3 and I decided to have it replaced this summer and were in the process of getting quotes when, on Friday morning, a roofing contractor dropped a letter through our door. It turns out that they wanted a couple of filler jobs to do before a big, delayed, contract got started, and they were willing to offer a fairly decent discount for someone wanting the job done right away.

By lunchtime we had a visit from a rep from the company and had found out more. We thought about it over the weekend and confirmed that we wanted the work done (including getting new cladding, which should massively improve the house's insulation) on Monday. Yesterday they put up scaffolding, and as I type they are removing the old roof -- apparently by the end of the day we should have a new felt roof and the proper covering (metal sheets which look like tiles) will be going on over the next few days.

I know how they are proceding at the moment because I had a phonecall earlier to say that they couldn't get any power for their tools, so I had to take a quick trip back to check it out. It turns out that they have a shonky transformer that was tripping our power circuits, and so they'll be getting a new one in. Doesn't bode too well, but other than that they seem to be doing a good job so far.