The Handyman Rides the Roof

Unlike unmown grass or  low tire pressure or even the curse of dandruff, a leaky roof cannot be ignored for long.  Especially when you're decorating the space under the leak.  Especially when family is visiting in three weeks.  Specifically, your wife's brother's family.  So onto the roof I did climb this afternoon.  I discovered that Uncle Bud had set the modern-day record for abusing industrial-grade bathtub caulk.

I wasn't originally going to use hand tools for this nasty job, but after I humped the electric drill and wire brushes onto the roof, I learned that the electrons that were entering the extension cord down by the carport were not making it out the business end of the cord.  I looked for a bulge in the cord where they might be piling up, but gave up and attacked the job with box cutters and an old wood chisel.  The extension cord that I bought in 1974 had failed me.  I knew it wouldn't last.

It wasn't enough for Uncle Bud to caulk the bejesus out of the joint where the lanai joins the house, but he went and laid styrofoam over the caulk, then caulked over the whole mess. Like a petrified stack of plastic pancakes.  I know it's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but no host of angels would convict me: I just went off on poor Bud and hoped No One was listening.

Removing the old, dried and twisted ropes of caulk resulted in only one scrape on my hands.  Well, actually six, but only one of them is bleeding badly enough to require direct pressure.  Damn Coumadin.

Tomorrow I learn whether a roofing product called Peal & Seal actually works as advertised.  This is so going to bugger my Wednesday bridge game.

Newt