Repairs

The rainy season is almost upon us. We got three days of rain this week, so on Monday we prepared for it by making some much needed repairs to some roofs. The irony of living in the PNW is that about 1/4 of the year, you don’t actually need a roof at all. A medium duty shade cloth or a camo net will work just fine.

The other 3/4 of the year, you will die of drowning if you don’t have a roof.

The shop roof was a DIY project, and we can tell that whoever did the roof started on the southeast corner. By the time they got to the southwest corner, they had almost figured out how to build a steel roof.

Almost. I got most of the seams well caulked last summer, but this particular one leaks in heavy weather or a south wind, so I added an extra bead of silicone to it.

The water collection system has been leaking as well, so I put some silicone in the fittings for that. I am okay with a little leaking. We will never not have enough water to fill the tank, as long as we don’t let the tank just run out into the pasture.

By the way, the pollarding on that willow is coming in beautifully.

Then the roof on the section of covered steps going down into the basement. This blew off in a windstorm a week or so ago, and once I got up on a ladder it was easy to see why. Another DIY.

The adhesive strip that says, “remove before application” was not removed. The shingles were put on with staples instead of nails. Some of the seams lined up instead of alternating, and the underlying material was planks, not plywood, so some of the staples were going through knotholes into nothing, or into the cracks between boards.

I tapped it back together, well enough to last for a few months. After a certain point in the remodel we will be taking the whole roof off to replace it. Oh what surprises await!