Casa de Tortugas - Stories
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Getting our roofing delivered
This was one of the most hectic processes we have encountered. Thank goodness we are all done.
The process started months ago when we ordered our roofing from Pana Roof in Panama City. Picking out the roofing was a little tricky because we were not able to visit the factory and see the material in person. But the staff at Pana Roof really helped a lot by answering all our questions. They took a copy of our plans and estimated how much roofing we would need. The numbers they came up with were almost identical to those from our builder.
Getting the material ordered was the easy part of the process. The tricky part was getting the material out to our property. We had to schedule the delivery from Panama City to Almirante. Other than picking the date, Pana Roof took care of this part for us making that fairly easy. Sadly, because of distance and potential delays, we couldn't get an exact delivery date or time which made the rest of the process tricky.
To get the material the rest of the way from Almirante to Popa, we had to hire a barge to transport, workers to load the boat in Almirante, and more workers to unload out on Popa. All without having an exact time or date. This was the stressful part.
On delivery day, our morning started just a little early so we could get to our boat in Bocas del Toro and cross the bay from over Almirante. We filled up with fuel and then tied up near the delivery location. We were a bit nervous to see that the delivery truck was early. Fortunately, they were able to unload the truck and place the material near the water where we could load once the barge arrived.
Come 9 o'clock, when we were suppose to start loading the boat, we learned that the barge was running late and there was not a good time estimate.
We had asked four people to help us with the load but only two of them showed up. So we sat and talked with them for about an hour and a half. We hoped the others would show up. It was nice to get to know the people we were working with. Once the boat came, we were still short on help. But we got lucky, there was a young man near by that was looking for work. So at least we had three helpers.
Once the boat was loaded, we shook hands with our workers, paid them and said our goodbyes before jumping on our own boat and heading to the island.
Because the barge is so much slower than we are, we reached the island very quickly and had time to work on other side projects.
The workers we hired to unload arrived early so they had nothing to do for a couple hours. Good thing they had time to rest in advance, because the work they had to do once the boat showed up was pretty extreme. Right off the bat, they had to get the material off the boat on to the dock quickly so we could stop the clock on the boat rental. Then the hard part started as they had to move all the material up the hill a few sheets at a time. It took hours and it was back breaking work. There was no way Tina or I could do anything to help with moving the material.
The guys in Almirante worked hard, but the work out on the island was so much harder. Here are some pictures and a video showing how hard this work really is. We continue to be grateful every day for the all the amazing people who are helping us make our dream a reality!
For those that like numbers...
- Sheets of roofing: 76
- Weight per sheet: 79 pounds
- Sheet size: 18.5' x 3.5'
- Total weight: 6,204 pounds
- Panama City - Almirante: 373 miles
- Almirante - Isla Popa: 22 miles
- Today's transport time: 8.5 hours
Update - July 2024: The owners of the Pana Roof company came out and took some drone pictures of our roof. These are some of the best images and a nice video to give you a view of our home with the roofing installed.
| The house is complete (mostly) Published 19-Jun-2024 | We have two new water tanks Published 17-May-2024 |
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