New Roof

As I mentioned before, when you have work done, in this case it was on our roof, you buy all of the supplies and then you pay for the labor.  Rick and Hector went and negotiated all of the supply buying in David after the roofer that we hired came to the house and gave us the shopping list.

So, we ordered the supplies, and waited a week for them to arrive at the store in David, so they could deliver them. There was a little concern about whether the truck could make it up the curvy part of the road, but it made it! 

It took 3 complete days and a crew of 5 to remove our old roof and put the new metal roof on. The crew was friendly and we got to know them while they were here. One of them enjoyed practicing his English skills on us, while the others enjoyed teaching us the names of the different items in Spanish. I also learned that the berries from one of the trees in the backyard is edible! I have been wondering about this tree for awhile, then I saw one of the crew members eating the berries. I asked them the name of the berries, but none of them knew what it was called, but they all agreed they were good. They taste a little like blackberries or Marionberries (a Northwest U.S. berry.)

The crew found two snake skins, thankfully they were old and there was no snake! How a snake got on the roof, I have no clue. There were a few other creatures up there too, but they were all relocated into the jungle.

Above is the roofer, Lolo, waving his hand over Rick's auto-darkening helmet. These helmets cost twice as much here in Panama than what they do in the U.S. I am not sure why the price would be so different, since they are both imported from China, but they do. Most of the welders around here have the $15 basic welding mask and do not pay the $75 for the auto-darkening one. 

Below you can see the areas where the walls meet the roof. These areas were filled in with cement blocks and the mason repaired the rest. However, one wall was not able to be repaired with cement blocks, so everyone determined that the best solution was to weld a steel beam over the area and cement around it. Lolo has experience welding with a stick welder, but was excited to try out a MIG welder and the auto-darkening mask.

Here is the mess of the old roof materials, some of it will be used on the container as we convert it into an apartment, still not sure what we are going to do with the rest of it, but I am sure it will get re-purposed.
​
I am not ready for the rainy season yet, but at least my roof is! The crew did a good job and the entire experience went very smoothly. There were no surprises, the price was reasonable, the crew was extremely friendly and the work was done quickly.