Hick was up on the roof of the senior apartments Monday morning, looking for the source of a leak during our three inches of rain last week. It had caused a light to fall from the ceiling inside. He found it. The rubber coating on the roof had collapsed in one corner. It's not something Hick is qualified to fix, so he called a contractor.
There's a view across town at sunrise. Not very impressive. It's a small town that sprung up during the lead mining era. Hick's apartment building sits on Main Street. In the distance, you can see the store where I shop every Thursday. It will always be Country Mart to me, even though another chain has taken over. The brick building to the left of Hick's roof is the former Southwestern Bell Telephone building that my dad worked out of for many years. In the days before Bell was de-regulated into AT&T.
There's not much to see of Main Street from this view. That white building used to be a Western Auto store when I was a kid, but is now a Subway. The sandwich shop, not underground transit. The only thing underground in this town it the lead mine, now closed.
If you zoom in, you can see the back of the post office, the loading dock with all the vehicles parked. To the left of it, there's a brick building with two green awnings. That is now the city library, but it used to be the unemployment office, where I worked when Genius was born.
Getting back to the roof business... I asked Hick how much it would cost to replace the roof.
"It's like replacing a roof on a house. It will cost about $16,000."
"Does the association have enough money to do that?"
"Oh, yeah. Since I took over a year ago, it went from having a negative balance to over $60,000 in the bank."
"Will it be the same kind of roof? That tarpaper stuff? Or metal, like a house?"
"It's not tarpaper. It's EDPM. It will be the same kind of roof."
Good to know that Hick has filled the coffers of the association for the elderlies, what with getting all those apartments ready and rented. So they can afford to replace the roof. They're sure not wasting that money on Hick's salary!
That's a very expensive replacement! When you said it was rubber I was thinking maybe they could patch it like when bike tyre gets a puncture. I have never heard of a rubber roof before today, out here we have terracotta tiles or galvanised iron roofs, both options come in assorted colours though the range isn't huge.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of roof is common on old buildings where the roof is mostly flat. I always thought it was tar paper. Maybe that's the older version of this EDPM stuff.
Delete60k in the bank, that's why they could give the thumbs up to his pay raise. I am so glad he can get the roof fixed with no stress on the money end.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's good that they now have money for repairs. We can't have the elderlies dodging falling lights and ceiling pieces!
DeleteI am still confused about this situation, because I think Hick says the city owns the building, but the association leases it from them. So who should actually be paying for the maintenance of the building?
Agreed - I think that the city ought to be covering the cost as landlords.
DeleteIf the CITY owns the building, the CITY should be doing maintenance and repairs at THEIR cost.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Like when Hick told them THEY should be mowing the grass around the building. I need to ask him about this roof replacement and who's responsible. He met with the contractor today.
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