Blame it on the rain

Home contractors worked furiously during the dry patches yesterday to make up for a month’s backlog of orders.

“It’s horrible,” said roofer Tom Petrilli while working at an Alexandria home yesterday. Mr. Petrilli and another worker with Lyons Contracting Inc., an Alexandria roofing company, were replacing parts of the home’s multisection roof.

“We have about 45 jobs that have yet to be done,” and the company works on two to three roofs a week, said Mr. Petrilli, the manager.

The company stopped doing flat roofs until there is a break in the rain.

“You need two solid days without rain to do those kinds of roofs, and we haven’t had that for a month,” he said. Instead, Mr. Petrilli and a crew of seven are focusing on repairing divided roofs, which can be replaced in segments.

“It’s part of some suggestions a friend and roofing contractor in Seattle has sent to me. It’s the best option right now since the rain doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon,” Mr. Petrilli said.

Short breaks from the drizzle and dreary, gray skies are expected on Monday and Tuesday, said John Newkirk, program manager at the Washington/Baltimore office of the National Weather Service. Showers and thunderstorms with temperatures reaching the mid-70s are likely for the rest of the week.

The Washington area hashad 5.91 inches of rain in May, 84 percent more than the average 3.2 inches, on top of 28 inches of snow in February, Mr. Newkirk said.

“It’s been a rough 12 months where we’ve gone from a drought to a blizzard to consistent rain,” he said.

The snow increased orders for leaky roofs 50 percent at Jack’s Roofing Co. Inc., but now the Silver Spring company is havingtrouble handling the bottleneck, said Keith Decker, co-owner and president.

“It’s been nice this afternoon, so we’re hoping to take care of some repair” on a backlog of 75 service calls, he said. In the last three weeks, the company’s 30 employees barely worked 18 hours a week because of the rain, Mr. Decker said.

The company is still taking orders but not estimating when work can be completed. Mr. Decker said six major commercial contracts are on hold indefinitely.

“We aren’t keeping a schedule anymore. The best we can do is work when we can, hope for good weather and be ready to work like crazy when it comes,” Mr. Decker said.

Sam Hwang has a similar plan for his Alexandria general-contracting company, Autumn Contracting Inc. Mr. Hwang and five employees have worked weekends and evenings to make up for a 40 percent loss of production in the last two months.

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