The Colloid Base

Replacing Composition (Asphalt) Shingles

The shingles on your roof are an important component of your home. However, most of us don’t think about them until something goes wrong. Composition shingles are made with a combination of materials, including a core of felt or fiberglass matting impregnated with asphalt and then covered with mineral particles. These types of shingles are designed to last 15 to 25 years (sometimes 30 years), after which they need to be replaced. Usually, a new layer of composition shingles may be applied over the existing layer - thus saving you the time of removing the old roofing.

Before you decide to install new shingles over your existing shingles, you should take into consideration the following:

How steep or complicated is your roof? Shingling a simple gable roof on a one-story house is pretty straightforward. However, if the roof is steep, has multiple planes, needs valley work and complicated flashings, consider the job carefully before you make a commitment to begin.

Is the roof sheathing in good condition? Check out the attic and look for voids, separating plywood, and broken boards. You may also want to inspect the rafters. Check for rot by poking with a screwdriver. All rotten or damaged boards under the old roof must be replaced. If this is the case, hire a professional to do this work.

How many layers of shingles already exist? Most building codes allow a maximum of three layers of asphalt shingles (the original layer plus two reproofing layers). Check the number of layers on your roof by examining the rake (sloped) edge of the roof.

What is the condition of the old (existing) shingles? Bumps or dips in the old layer of shingles cannot be hidden by new roofing. If the old surface is not uniformly flat, it should then be removed.
As you’re getting ready to reroof your home, you need to look at the following:

Eaves and rakes. Look for rot along the edges. Make sure the fascia boards are sound and solidly connected to the rafter tails.

Valleys. It’s always a good idea to check the condition of the metal valley flashing.

Flashing. Take a look at the flashing around chimneys, vent stacks, and skylights.
One of the toughest jobs is getting the new shingles onto the roof. For an extra fee, many suppliers can “load” the roof for you, using a crane or conveyor belt. Otherwise, you will need to carry the shingles with you up a ladder. Entire bundles typically weigh about 75 pounds. Of course, you can open the bundles and carry smaller loads.

While up on the roof, make sure to form a level base for stacking the shingles. After all, the last thing you want is to have to retrieve shingles sliding off your roof back to the ground. A good strategy is to set a bundle on either side of the ridge. This allows you to set up an open work area.

Cutting Curves in Wood

Much of the finish carpentry in a home contains curves - pretty tricky work for the do-it-yourself weekend carpenter. Some of the curved cuts are for necessity. For example, holes through walls, doors, floors, and roof (for pipes or ducts). Others, however, are a bit more decorative - an archway, or a curve of a circular window.

Whatever the curve’s purpose, it requires tools and techniques different from those used for straight cuts. For most curves the best tool is an electric saber saw, ideally one with variable-speed control. Blades inch wide with 8 to 10 points per inch are suitable for most jobs, but other blades are available for special uses: a hollow-ground blade, for example, will make splinter-free cuts in plywood; a blade with 12 or 14 points per inch is advisable for scrollwork.

When power is not available, or when work space is too cramped for a saber saw, you can turn to any of several handsaws designed specifically for cutting curves. A coping saw has a delicate blade and a limited cutting range; it is best suited to finish joints in woodwork and to fine, intricate scrollwork. The keyhole saw can tackle heavier tasks, while the compass saw serves for still rougher work. Both come with an assortment of blades designed for different materials. The blades are tapered, with narrow tips for turns and for cutouts started from small drilled holes; and because the blades can be reversed, compass and keyhole saws are ideal for use in jobs with tight clearances and awkward undercuts.

Since you must guide the aforementioned saws by freehand, it is very important to mark a guide-line before cutting any curve. More often than not, you can simply hold an object to be duplicated - a section of decorative trim, for example - in place and trace its outline. However, some situations require more complex calculations and marking techniques. For instance, to mark an elliptical hole for a round pipe passing through the roof, you must plot the pitch of the roof and the size of the pipe on cardboard, then cut out the marked cardboard, then cut out the marked cardboard as a template to transfer the ellipse to the roof.

In other situations you must resort to scribing - a marking technique for fitting material to an existing curve. Generally, it consists of setting the wood - the floor boards in a semicircular alcove, for instance - against the curve and running a simple school compass around the curve to duplicate, or scribe, the arc on the boards.

When you cut a curve, be especially careful of the pressure you apply; under excess pressure, a handsaw blade will buckle and a saber-saw blade may shoot out of the cut or snap in two. Mark the guidelines for a saber saw on the unfinished side of the board if possible, because the upstroke cut of the blade splinters the wood; if you must work on the finished side, cover the guidelines with transparent tape to minimize the damage. Steady the board by

This article may be copied as long as full credit and our signature link is given below to Kris Koonar.

Kris Koonar is President Crack Marketing, and elite SEO firm that provides such services such as Link Building Services.
He is also Founder and President of a large Home Improvement Site where those in the Home Improvement Business can add their listings for free.

Back in the ancient days of 1994 when Mark Andreesen and his band of hardy programmers were inventing a ground-breaking product/application/way of life called a browser, a dedicated group of entrepreneurs started publishing Netsurfer Digest a modern day “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” for the web. I subscribed to this wonderful newsletter and reference guide back in those heady days of yesteryear and have been a loyal subscriber and advocate since then. Sadly on this past Sunday I received notice that Netsurfer was moving to a paid subscription only model and would no longer be able to continue publishing their three primary newsletters by utilizing inserted ads as their sole source of revenue.

Netsurfer became the proverbial canary in the coalmine that succumbed to the hazardous winds blowing across the online advertising market. They simply couldn’t build a sustainable business model via ad inserts, even by delivering a million impressions a month to an upscale, well educated, target rich demographic group. This denouement has broad implications to many who are dependent on advertising supported business models. If this wonderful award winning publication with excellent graphics, topical information delivered in snappy “let’s get to the point” journalism can’t make it then it’s time to batten down the hatches - the rough ride is still underway for online advertising.

What’s worse in my opinion is the founders of Netsurfer Communications said they were throwing in the towel and moving to a paid subscription model because they didn’t want to be a part of the intrusive (my words paraphrasing a bit) online ad technology that has become so “annoying.” You have to give them significant karma points for this brave stance, especially when you contrast it to the “greed is great” news that’s been hitting us all via the Enron debacle - thank God for real entrepreneurs who are putting their ethics ahead of their revenue stream, there may be some hope in the business community after all.

So, what does this mean to the broader community? It means it’s getting increasingly difficult to make a buck/euro selling advertising without selling your soul to the devil by deploying increasing invasive (does anyone really like pop ups?) technology that may irritate the hell out of your customers. Ad rates are plummeting, even the once mighty Yahoo is struggling to make revenue and their sales reps even return calls now, which is definitely au contraire to their I’m too busy to talk with customers .com glory days.

You couldn’t read a Fast Company or a Business 2.0 the last two years without reading some slick article by another reporter breathlessly telling us how the Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones) was pioneering the concept of building a viable online content subscription revenue model. This is hogwash, if we all had the type of branded content, excellent editors and the sterling reputation of one of the top five newspapers published in the world then this model would work for thousands of unique content publishers. But, most do not even have the subscriber base and branded content of a Netsurfer Digest - stay tuned to see if this model works for the Netsurfer folks (I hope so); but don’t hold your breath, I don’t think they will be ordering their $1,500. Herman Miller chairs right and left like the folks at Webvan and Quokka Sports - VC bucks don’t come around like they used to, but that’s another article.

I don’t have any silver bullets for those who are headed down the track of trying to sell advertising supported newsletters and/or shift to a subscription model. The obvious advice is this may work, but you better have other revenue sources that leverage your demographics. And, if you don’t have mutually reinforcing revenue streams, then take a hard look at your business and modify accordingly. The greatest shift in online advertising is via opt-in e-mail marketing - we all want to receive information that is timely, informative and presented in a compelling manner. So, find a business model that lets you narrowcast products and services to a community of people who want to receive content (contact) from your company - good luck to all and by the way, signup for Netsurfer’s paid subscription newsletter - I did, we all have to vote with our visa cards once in a while to keep the karmic balance on an even plane.

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies.

Lee@intelective.com

For those of you conducting a lease purchase business (or any other business), the first thing for you to do each morning is to check your goals. How many calls are you to make, how many contacts, articles, etc. Your goals will depend on where you are in your business - just starting, in business for a year, two years, etc.

The next thing to do for those in lease purchasing or any other business is to check your calendar for the day, and to check your tickler file. Depending on what is on your calendar and in your tickler file will determine what else you will be doing for the day. Let’s assume you don’t have any appointments scheduled. Your tickler file is empty, other than for your To Do list.

Next you check any e-mail you have received and answer it. Answer any snail mail from the previous day. For those of you operating a lease purchase business, next, be sure you have enough newspapers with sellers to call, otherwise go through the next one in your stack. The same goes for your FSBO sites on line (if you already have a list to call from fine, if not, go to the FSBO sites and pull down the information you need to make calls). Once this is done, start calling (be sure to follow your script and leave the appropriate message).

After you are done calling, send out any follow up information you need to. Be sure after calling to update your databases.

Next you want to do some reading in your area, both on and off-line. Don’t forget you can do some of this during your lunch break. Also be sure to visit on-line groups that relate to your business.

Be sure to check e-mail again in the afternoon and respond if necessary.

At the end of the day, straighten out your desk, do your To Do list for the next day, check your tickler file, and add any appointments to your calendar.

Depending upon when your mail is delivered, you will need to deal with this also. Open and respond to any snail mail, or put it in mail folders to deal with later or the next day. If you use a mail box you will need to schedule this in during the day. Decide if you need to go daily or a couple times a week.

In addition, for accounting and deposits, I do this on a weekly basis, however, others might feel more comfortable dealing with it daily.

Also for those of you with merchant accounts, it is best to run your credit cards in batches and then batch out at the end of the day.

For items purchased that I e-mail out, I do that during down times, after work hours, lunch time, break times. For items that need to be mailed, I schedule two post office runs each week. You waste too much time going every day. For those of you running a mail order business, you might want to look into services that come to your home for pick-up or use a service that goes to the post office for you.

For those of you in the lease purchase business, the above is just part of what you need to do each day. What I mean is if you are in the middle of a deal you will also have to schedule time for credit checks, showing the property, and calls from tenant buyers. With good time management and organization skills it can be done. We do it every day, plus a whole lot more. While some days we might concentrate on coaching or consulting, other days we will concentrate on writing or research. However, we get it all done with time to spare, How? Organization and time management….plus a lot of years of practice.

So, don’t get discouraged, persevere and some day you will be in the same place we are.

Copyright 2002 DeFiore Enterprises

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our “how to” Home Business Solutions Digest, it’s like having your own personal coach: subscribeHBS@homebusinesssolutions.com