Roof Dispatches

[kevin_standlee]

The patches Lisa applied to the roof of the old house covered some, but not all, of the holes. When some rain came along, she found new holes. But she (quite sanely) will not do any work on that roof without someone on the ground as a helper. I couldn't arrange to come to Oregon in September because I'd had to keep the month clear for potential jury duty, so she was able to persuade her friend Scott to come down from Portland for the weekend.

Then, of course, it rained. You can't get any work done on the roof when it's raining. Besides the increased danger, the Snow Roof covering goop needs dry weather to cure. So when the rain cleared on Sunday they had to rush out and do as much as they could in just a few hours rather than over three days as planned.

This time Lisa put the roof ladder on top of the previously-patched area.

Originally, Lisa wanted to spread sheets of polyester roofing material, then apply the sealant over it. This is how she did the first patch, and you can see the sheets hanging off the bottom of the roof here. But with so little time to work and the breeze starting to blow -- you can't spread the sheets when they just blow off the roof -- she had to instead apply sealant directly to the roof. She used eight cans of sealant, covering not only new sections of the roof, but also parts of the original patch which had not had enough applied to them the first time around.

Lisa decided to leave the ladder on the roof because the only way to get it down would have involved dragging it through the still-setting goop. Also, getting the ladder up on and down from the roof is one of the most tiresome parts of the whole process, so it's helpful to leave it there for the next round of repairs, which will be (assuming it's dry enough to do so) when I go up there in October.

And speaking of things left on the roof, Lisa left one unopened can of the roof goop on top of the chimney, because the cans are heavy and hauling them up there is so much work. If a roll of packing tape could stay up there then entire winter, weathering gale-force winds, then a heavy can of sealant ought to be okay for a few weeks.

I hope the weather is good enough for us to work on this roof some more in October, because we really do need to get the leaks stopped so that we can repair the water damage on the lower floors and use the affected rooms again.

Comments

Yeah, what Kevin said

[(Anonymous)]

Scott, He-Who-Watches-From-Ground-Level, will add that this really did take all day Sunday and should have taken much of Saturday (except that it was pouring rain). One can of that roof goop doesn't cover nearly as much area as one might think. Lisa roughly doubled the amount of goop coverage, and I didn't get out of Mehama until the sun was setting.

For those who've never seen the house in person, let me also note that the tree there is not viewed with a cunning photographic angle. That really is a gigantic California Redwood looming over the roof, planted there by one of Lisa's ancestors long ago. No doubt in a thousand years, someone will be agitating to preserve the endangered Oregon Redwood...

Thanks, Scott

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

And thank you for coming and helping, Scott.

If we can figure out a way to get rid of that tree without spending thousands of dollars for it, we'll do our best to prevent rumors of the Oregon Redwood from spreading. I wonder what a future archeologist would think of a California Redwood showing up in the "coal seam."

That's a big tree, all right

[(Anonymous)]

(Scott again) I've got no clue how to get it out easily and there may be no such way. There's no clear place to fell it in one piece, and taking it apart in place would involve considerable labor.

Lisa cleared several of its offspring off of the roof in the past, most only a few centimeters tall and living in the moss; I haven't spotted any little redwoods at ground level, so it might not be propagating as well down where herbivores can get to the seedlings.

As for the future, a redwood found in the Willamette Valley would be an obvious hoax, wouldn't it?

Re: That's a big tree, all right

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

A tree-removal company quoted $4000 and about a week's work to get rid of the tree. (And of course Lisa would have to move while they were working to give them enough room to lower pieces to the ground.) And they say that because it's an inland redwood, not a coastal one, that the wood in the tree isn't commercial-grade and thus is useless. Rats!