Home Show Highlights

Recap of the season's home show weekends, because the booths teach us as much as the visitors. Three thousand conversations about roofs leave a company wiser, and a little hoarse.

The star of the show, for the third year running: the hail demonstration table. We set a steel panel and an asphalt shingle side by side under a small ice launcher, and the crowd that gathers resembles a puck drop. The sound tells the story, a dull thud versus a resigned crunch, and spouses exchange the look that ends with a signed inspection appointment.

Runner-up: the ice dam cross-section model, a dollhouse attic showing exactly how heat escaping a living room manufactures the dam that lifts the shingle. Children understand it in thirty seconds. Adults ask why their last roofer never mentioned ventilation, and we hand them our card with sympathy.

The questions that surprise us every year: Can I walk on a metal roof? Yes, softly, with soft soles, on the framing lines. Won't it be loud in rain? Louder than a whisper, quieter than your dishwasher, and the attic insulation does the translating. What about lightning? Metal doesn't attract it; it conducts it safely if it comes.

Next show's dates will be posted here first. Bring your home's photos, and your skepticism, both are welcome.