Setting Up Before the First Shingle Comes Off
We walk the yard the morning work starts and lay plywood across the driveway and any path the crew will use to move material, since a loaded wheelbarrow or a dropped bundle of shingles can crack a driveway that looked fine the day before. Tarps go over shrubs, flower beds, and any window unit close to the house, tied down rather than draped, because a stiff morning wind off the plains can pull a loose tarp free inside the first hour.
Anything portable near the house, patio furniture, planters, a grill, gets moved clear of the drop zone where old shingles and torn off decking come down.
The Magnet Sweep We Run More Than Once
A tear off leaves loose roofing nails scattered across the yard no matter how careful the crew is, and one nail in a driveway or a bare foot path turns a finished job into a bad memory. We run a magnetic roller sweep at the end of the tear off day, again after the new roof goes down, and a final pass before we call the job complete, since nails work their way out from under mulch and grass over the following days.
Kids and pets are the reason we take this seriously. We would rather run the sweep a fourth time than have a homeowner call about a nail the week after we left.
What We Leave the Way We Found It
Gutters get checked and cleared of anything that fell in during the tear off before we call a job finished, since a gutter full of old shingle granules and torn felt paper defeats the purpose of a brand new roof. Beds along the drip line get a last look for anything that landed and did not get picked up in the general cleanup.
Questions Worth Asking Before the Crew Shows Up
If you have a sprinkler system, tell us where the heads sit before the dumpster or material gets placed, since a buried head is easy to miss and costly to fix after. The same goes for a septic line or a shallow gas run near the house. A short walk of the property together before the first day, pointing out what is under the ground rather than just on the roof, saves both of us a headache later.