Weather. Just Weather.
Greetings once again everyone!
Yes this week’s post is all about the weather. Well, perhaps not quite all of it — there are a couple of tangentially related things — but it’s pretty close to a single topic this time. There are also plenty of photos to show you what we have been dealing with.
And it turns out this week’s sponsor is weather related. That’s right, this week’s post is sponsored by Too Much Snow. More about them later.
You think I am kidding? Not true! Many of you will have encountered the arctic blast that has been hammering us here in North Vancouver. We got the warmer end of it and still saw temperatures drop to -10°C (about 14°F) for a couple of nights. For days high temperatures were at or below freezing. In short, it’s been cold.
The thing is, those kinds of temperatures are not normal for the Vancouver area and our home was not built for them. There have been… complications.
Let’s start with an image gallery to set the stage:
What you see there — in random order — are photos taken around our home during this interlude.
This snow is sticky and many of the plants are hating it. We have lots of broken bamboo at a minimum, and we’ll probably find other issues as things thaw out.
About the only one actually enjoying this is Tinkerbelle:
Cruzer is not a fan. He’s delicate and starts limping shortly after getting snow wedged between the pads in his feet. Tink, on the other hand, loves playing “Chase me, chase me!” in the back yard, and will spend half an hour watching squirrels in the trees despite the weather. But just so no one thinks Tink is brilliant, here’s another photo of her:
It’s important to hang your head off the side of the bed — particularly when the bed is doubled up — so you can get a really good crick in your neck.
Anyway, now a word from our sponsor:
“Move to Canada,” they said.
“It’s lovely. Vancouver is the Florida of Canada.”
Yeah, sure it is.
Too Much Snow… it’s good for you, or that’s what we want you to think. Also, be glad it’s not Alberta.
Here are two more photos of that same picnic table:
That’s right, there was 14" (over 35 cm) of snow at that time, and more fell later.
In other (slightly less snowy) news, I managed to get to downtown Vancouver to apply for my Canadian passport. Appointments for this are booked well in advance, but I got lucky and found this one. Anne’s appointment is in January. On the way back I took this photo of North Vancouver from the Seabus:
That’s right, I took transit to and from my appointment to avoid all that driving on snow covered roads, not to mention parking somewhere along Broadway where there is a ton of SkyTrain construction going on.
The rest of the news is definitely cold induced.
First, we’ve had a problem with downspouts icing up. I thought I had a solution for that with some heating mats up on the roof, but they don’t work. When one of the downspouts backed up and dumped water inside the eave on the back of the house (making an enormous icy mess which so far seems to have stayed outside despite getting behind plenty of siding) I made an emergency run to a local supply place where I bought a couple of heating cables to keep them open. Those have done the trick in the subsequent cold weather, which is a relief.
But that was not the only issue. Upstairs we have water seeping into the ceiling of my studio right where the roof drains out. The water has to flow through a hole in the parapet that surrounds the roof, and something has gone wrong. This is the same place we had a leak once before when that downspout backed up, but this time the downspout is actually clear, so I think the issue is ice in the opening.
Sadly I cannot get up there to confirm that because the only access is off the lower roof which is covered with snow and ice. There is no way to set a ladder up to get a look at things until the weather turns. And the weather is turning. Temperatures are gradually rising and we are due for some rather heavy rain. This will be a real mess.
I have already called our contractor to arrange a consultation with him and his roofer about how to fix these issues permanently. Our home was not designed to handle the weather that climate change is sending our way. Storms are getting more severe (both rain and snow) and we’re seeing extreme temperatures more often. Changes are needed to keep the roof draining better when faced with ice or torrential rain. I don’t know what those changes are, but the current situation is not acceptable. I do know it will get fixed.
That’s it for this week. Happy Christmas to all!