Roof Wars 3: The Rise of Roof
Hello everyone. Another week gone, and this week’s post is largely yet another tale of roofing. Less exciting this time, I have to admit, but that’s actually a good thing. Exciting roofing stories are overrated and lead to heartburn.
No, the roof is not yet done. But it’s getting closer. The field had the final cap sheet completed as of Thursday evening:
The “field” is the main area of the roof. On Friday the roofer was doing the “stripping” — putting the cap sheet up the sides of the curb (the low lip around the outside edge) and up the sides of the protrusions for the skylights.
Once that is all done, there is metal flashing to be attached on top of the curb, and along the area where the wall meets the roof, as well as around the skylights. But the flashing has to be ordered to size, and will take a couple of days to arrive.
In addition to all of that, there are a few downspouts to redo and a channel to carry the water off the upper roof and across the lower one without it wearing the roofing material itself. Oh, and the one skylight we are replacing still has to be installed as well.
All those things will get finished, but not quite yet. We need both parts and time. It seems that gutter & downspout crews are in short supply in Vancouver, and they will probably be the outlier that finishes off the project in a week or three.
But we are supposed to be fully watertight now, and thus ready for anything mother nature wants to throw our way. Just in time for it not to rain anymore, possibly forever.
The other big project this past week is in the garage. I have a fundamental issue out there: lack of storage. I can’t even unbox all of my tools, which means there are things I cannot get at to do other projects in the house, and so on. It’s rather painful, really. The programmers out there might recognize the issue as a form of the Tower Of Hanoi problem that is often used to teach recursive programming techniques. (That’s a very geeky reference. Don’t worry about it if it makes no sense.)
The last post said I’d bought some cabinets to help alleviate that issue, but the result — at the time — was more stuff taking up space in the garage, not less. I’ve been waiting for castors to arrive, since these cabinets need to be mobile while I work on all the issues the garage has over the next several months. Yesterday the first set of castors arrived, and with those in hand I was able to make some more progress.
On the left is the rolling drawer cabinet, mounted on the castors. Sitting on top of that is the wall cabinet that came with the set. It will probably be unused for months while I get the garage drywalled and painted. On the right is the big cabinet still sitting on a foam block.
Here’s the thing. I need that tall cabinet to be on castors as well, but it’s not designed for it. The manufacturer is probably afraid it will tip over when moved, but I am not letting that stop me. I’ve used some plywood the previous owner left me (in the form of an ugly cabinet that I already disassembled) to create a platform for the tall cabinet. I will attach the castors to that platform and screw the platform to the bottom of the cabinet. The second set of castors is just like the first, but hasn’t arrived yet. Soon, I hope.
Once I get back in the garage I can load up the cabinet of drawers. That will be some progress, and make a tiny bit of room for other things. Eventually the other set of castors will arrive, and I will be able to finalize the setup of the tall cabinet and load it up as well.
Then I hope to have enough room in the garage to get the plumbers in to replace the water heater, and to get another contractor to replace the garage door.
The only other important news this week is that cases of Covid-19 in BC are on the rise, largely fuelled by young(er) people going to large gatherings that violate the rules. Such gatherings are hard to do contact tracing for when a case appears, and they spread the disease readily.
As of this morning I heard this called the “second wave” by those in charge, and they are preparing for large numbers of cases in the hospitals as a result of this lunacy. And of course we have another problem approaching: winter. As the weather turns cold people will be forced back indoors, and confined spaces spread disease much more readily. Combined with the annual flu season, we could be in for a very rough time.
Sadly, it seems to me the only intelligent thing to do is prepare for this disease to be around for a long time. Even if a vaccine was declared ready to use today it would be quite a while before everyone could get it, thanks to manufacturing and logistical limitations. Until then we all need to live like hermits, wear masks when we’re out, and wash our hands a lot. It’s not fun or desirable, but it is necessary. The alternative is bleak, to say the least.
That being said, our leaders here in BC do indicate that we can turn the tables on this disease again if people stop doing dumb things. The case numbers could start dropping, and a large second wave could still be avoided. The cynic in me has an answer to that, of course. I’m sure you can guess it.
That got a bit dark. Sorry.
Here’s something to lighten the mood a little:
That’s Tinkerbelle getting a drink from a tiny puddle in the water feature, and Skookie trying to figure out what she’s got that might be interesting. We have one or more slow leaks in this thing, so we play with it regularly, moving the hose around (as seen here) trying to fully understand the problem(s).
At this point I think we’re going to have to take up all the rocks in the upper sections completely, remove the pond liner, and either re-lay it or replace it completely. The problem seems to be that water can escape in subtle ways that are hard to find. The main pond appears not to leak at all, which is great, but the upper bits are a problem. So far we have not found any obvious issue that — when fixed — causes the leaking to stop.
Ah well, it’s something to do during the next pandemic induced shutdown.
*sigh*
Have a great week. Stay safe!