By Jacob Morgan

High atop the roof tops and blistering summer heat stands sophomore Cody Connolly and the crew of Poly Vinyl Roofing. Poly Vinyl Roofing is a family run roofing business that is owned by Connolly’s father Mike. Cody (15) worked with his father most of the summer performing various roofing services, from removing old decaying shingles to installing big industrial air conditioning units.

According to Cody, his father has owned the business, Poly Vinyl Roofing, for about 16 years. Cody started working for his dad at the age of 10, when he became interested and curious in what his dad does for a living. Doing smaller tasks to begin with, he fell in the love with roofing and knew this is what he wanted to do. As he became older, he started to do more and more work and began to sit on the roof just like any of the other guys. This past summer he worked half days filling in when he was needed which was at least once a week. There are about 12 others that work with him at Poly Vinyl Roofing and he has enjoyed their company, even if they tease him a little bit for being the boss’s son. His favorite aspect of the job is during the off time where he gets to hang out and relax with the guys, calling them “a bunch of great people.” Over the course of this last summer, they worked on at least 20 to 25 different roofs, proving that business is not lacking.

Roofing a house takes about a whole day of grueling labor in the hot sun. “Some days get really bad,” Connolly said as he described the whole process of the day’s labor. When working on a brand new house or building that had never had a roof before the first step was to place down insolation and this usually took about two hours to accomplish. From there they would begin to glue down the membrane. On the average 10×10 foot square it would take mere minutes. They usually can accomplish gluing on the membrane on 10 of these squares in about 45 minutes. All of this took about half of the day to complete. After that they would add on any special things like air conditioning units. This took up their other half of the day.

The worst days in the summer came when the air was humid and the sun was high in the sky. “These days were always the worst to work on, especially if the the roof was black colored so it absorbed more heat,” Connolly said. However not all days were bad and he described it as “good honest work,” and enjoyed working for his dad. Despite being the boss’s son he made friends with the employees, and said that the whole job working there has been an enjoyable experience.
After working on at least five to seven roofs, Cody Connolly knows that this what he wants to do, become the foreman of the business and follow his father’s footsteps up the ladder onto the roof.