Friday, July 19, 2013

Friday Five, Raindrops Keep Falling

I know many parts of the country are suffering from a terrible drought. I wish I could give them some of our rain. We’re seventeen (yes, 17) inches above normal.

Most of the time, I love rain. It fact, I love the extra 17 inches. Except that those extra inches are coming into my house. Normally, when there's excess water we have a basement issues. This time, it's the roof.

And it wasn't, "Oh, look, there's a water spot on the ceiling." It was, "Oh, look, the shelf of books from the 1800s is swimming in water and the books are ruined. And, "Oh, look, another room has water dripping down the walls." And "Oh, look, the area around the fireplace in our bedroom in leaking and water is dripping down one of Cal's paintings."

So we called roofers, and they inspected. (I didn’t really expect to have roofing problems since we had the roof stripped down to the decking and replaced just over six years ago.) In any case, according to the new roofers—not the losers who did our re-roofing—we have a section of roof that needs to be replaced, leaks that need patching, and flashing that needs to be redone because the original roofers did it wrong.

They made an appointment to come on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s Friday, and they still aren’t here.

So I’m beginning to wonder why. Here are my theories.

1. The roofers have no plans to fix the roof. They have a sadistic need that forces them to go from house to house stressing out homeowners on the state of their roofs.

2. My children are paying the roofers money to stay away so they can find out how long it takes me to “snap” due to the stress of having books, furniture etc., stacked all over the house to protect them from water damage.

3. The roofers are waiting for the next deluge so they can charge extra for working in the rain.

4. Since my laptop is now fixed (even the repair people are surprised it’s working), I need a new source of patience-producing frustration.

5. The roofers are in cahoots with builders and they’re waiting for a good case of rot to set in. Or mildew. Or paint damage—oops already got that.


Maybe we need to rethink our roof and go with this. But I wonder how you’d mow it. Or do you have to buy a goat and let him do the trimming?

File:Norðragøta, Faroe Islands (3).JPG
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

2 comments:

  1. I think you might need more than one goat. Especially if it keeps raining.

    We're about twenty inches above normal this year, so we're about to rust down here, too. Sorry about the leaky roof. I know how stressful that can be. We used to have a problem with leaking at the seam between the original house and the addition we had built across its entire rear. For years, my poor husband hauled huge cans of tar up on the roof and slathered it on. Finally, we got a metal roof put on. Best decision ever. It costs more initially, but those babies are made to LAST. Ours will be going strong long after our batteries die.

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  2. We had our share of rain in May and June and thought it would never end.
    Sorry you're having roof issues. What a pain.

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