It’s just a question of arranging the furniture properly

and it isn’t a dish-cloth, it’s my shawl.”

The claims adjuster came by Tuesday (the one day of sunny weather we’ve had this week), and we climbed onto the roof, where I peeled back the tarpaulin and he took pictures of the holes.  Then he went on to point out to me several places on both sections of the roof, gabled and flat, which showed evidence of hail damage.  I didn’t know what to look for, but once he showed me what hail hits looked like, the damage was obvious.

We got off the roof and he came inside to take pictures of the holes in the sewing room ceiling . . . and then he went on to take pictures of all the old water and roof damage in M’s room and the smallest bathroom.  Once he’d done all this, he explained that he was going to write up two claims:  one for the ceiling damage in the sewing room and the expense I had getting the branch cut up and off the roof, which he would then close because the total of all that was less than my $2,000 wind-and-hail deductible, and another for hail damage and consequent Other Thyngs to both roofs, which would effectively mean that I get the ENTIRE roof replaced and only be out the separate $2,000 deductible for that claim, plus whatever it costs to replace the decking rotted by years of leakage from The Roof Saga.  (My homeowner’s policy specifically excludes wet rot and dry rot.)  After he ciphered for a while, he came up with a total claim of about $22,000, which includes my deductible, depreciation on the roof, and some money the insurance company will hold in escrow until all the repairs are done, to ensure that we really do them, and don’t take the money and sit on it or spend it on something else.  “So you’ll get a check for $15,000-and-some from the company, made out jointly to you and your mortgage-holder,” he concluded.

I don’t know how much my annual bonus is going to be yet, but our tax refund should run about $2,400, so if bonus is where I think it might go, we should nearly have the money to pay the deductible and our part of the roofing, and then we’ll have to think about how to move M out of her room so we can rock it again, after which we’ll have to clear out the sewing room to re-rock the ceiling.  The adjuster suggested renting a POD for storage, which is probably a good idea.

And thanks to Celine and Werehatrack, I didn’t have to pay $300 for the emergency roof patch.  Instead, I paid about $25 for materials, and half an hour’s labor had it all in place.  One of the big holes leaked MAYbe half a cup of water, and the other stayed completely dry.  I call that pretty damn effective.

Next week’s chore:  calling roofers and getting bids.

The Pod People are a race of nomadic, extraterrestrial fnord.