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February 4, 2006

we might not leak water any more

I hesitate to write this, but it appears that our roof doesn't leak any more.

Our roof was really messed up when we bought the house, or at least that's what the leaks indicated and the roofers said. We were afraid of tall ladders then, so we don't really know for sure. There were leaks in 3 or 5 different areas that contributed to the plaster being ruined and the termites having a super-moist wonderland.

We had some half-ass stoner redneck roofers almost fix things early on, but we've had a persistent leak in the hallway where the back porch joins the main part of the house. The water drips into the hallway right at the top of the stairs. We though that the leak would be vanquished when the back porch was rebuilt, but that didn't happen.

We've been living with the leak so long that somehow it had come to seem insurmountable, permanent, our nemesis. The leak came to embody everything frustrating and hopeless about living in a house under slow and uncertain renovation. When it rained at night, I'd have to put the headphones on so to not lay awake obsessing on the giant failure that this project must surely end up being.

We're not so afraid of the ladder anymore and now we've got the hatch, so we're becoming more and more familiar with the roof. We've spent hours over the past few weeks up there slowly scraping and patching and coating anything that looks like a possible entry spot for water. While the leak has made the tip-tip-tip of rain on the tin roof a true water torture, we've come to love the ability to slather the metal with tar and silver aluminum paint. I'm not sure what we would've done with a slate or shingle roof.

Our work seems to have made a difference. We've had few days of rain and the hallway is still dry. Things can only seem dry or appear to be fixed at this point: it'll take at least a few weeks to really internalize that the leak that we've had for the past 30 months is really gone.

Posted by john m at February 4, 2006 8:02 PM

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