All Prudent Speed

Well, the house needs some help with the roof. Believe it or not, the roof was a key part of the whole house project, until the basement got out of control and we decided that we didn't want our (miserable lying SOB) contractor on top of our house. Yesterday was the first day both warm enough and with the sun high enough to do a little melting on the roof of our one-story back room, which of course is on the north side of the two-story house. We have had ice dam problems in the past, years ago, which caused water to back up and find its way into the roofing and eventually into our back room, dripping through the suspended ceiling. We understood that the suspended ceiling was to hide a number of sins in the plaster ceiling and the space between the roof and the ceiling. We last roofed 20 years ago; that, plus the use of heat coils on the edge of the lower roof, seemed to put a halt to the problem.

This winter has been unpleasant. Not horribly snowy: although it snowed about 15 times in December and a few in January, only one snow exceeded two inches and most were under one inch. But December and especially January were well below average in temperature - where's the global warming when you need it?!? -and we ended up with a considerable snow-and-ice pack on that back roof. Melting up near the house couldn't make it to the edge where the coils had made passageways, so when hearing the surprising and dismaying drip drip drip onto the floor of our back room, I grabbed a wastebasket and got a bucket. I took off the lovely glass lampshade from the ceiling fixture, which was only half-full of water that had trickled down the fixture... and taped the switch into the off position.

Then I went into Laura's old room upstairs and removed the inner windows, then the outer storm/screen. Thank goodness this is easy. I went out onto the back roof with a snow shovel and a little hand axe - for gentle tapping - and cleared snow away from the suspected leak site. Wendy stood inside and watched me, cajoling me to come back in. She had the phone in hand, the better to dial 911 in case my natural klutziness won out.

This was all made harder as Laura and Ross were home, and we were all dressing to attend the wedding of one of Laura's good friends. But all went well: I got the window reinstalled, and we all got ready in time. I repeated the exercise today, to make a better water pathway as rain is expected Monday and Tuesday. I have a ladder that used to be high enough to get me onto the back room roof, but after the house project, we sit about 18" higher than before and, with my fear and hatred of ladders, I can't make that work. Add a new, taller ladder to the house project expense.

Oh, and add about $1300 for our trusted occasional project contractor Eldon to go into the basement and augment the shoddy and insufficient green board and sill that the original schmuck installed, then insulate the boundary. Our new basement got down to 43 degrees F, when the outside temperature was -10, and we ended up using a fan to blow upstairs air into the basement to restore a few degrees to our floor.

And the roof still needs doing, and Laura and Ross will be married this fall... good thing I LIKE oatmeal 3 times a day and am learning to deal with cheap wine.

Eldon Hilson is a local handyman, carpenter and contractor whom we have hired from time to time to handle small projects around the house. He's the ultimate Norwegian bachelor farmer, who lived with his parents well into his adulthood and may still do so (he's my age or beyond). He has been known to delay jobs while he worked with 4-H kids on their projects. Wendy once hired him for work on our porch, and he showed up with a bill for a job he'd done 3 years previously. On a couple of our jobs, he'd finish up except for one or two last trim pieces, which we still hold onto and call "Eldonboards," and hope to get him to nail down someday. But he's honest as the day is long, and a skilled carpenter, and a good source of local gossip, so we feed him coffee and doughnuts and continue to bring him in at need.

Except that we wanted the basement done in one year, we probably should have hired him in the first place.