Light rain Friday night into Saturday morning. Very light – not enough to wash the sidewalk chalk off the front walkway. The migraine was fully entombed in my skull – still beating out the rhythm of the previous day’s tunes and the silent screams of “get out of my house” that ran as the refrain in my mind all afternoon Friday while I waited for the work crew to leave.
We needed primer for the walls to “freshen” and cover the new drywall, so we spent 30 minutes in the room measuring for new trim and making plans for how the weekend’s work would play out. At some point after the 30 minutes I remembered to go back in the room and carefully look at the seam of ceiling-meets-wall because I hadn’t thought it looked very neat when I saw it on Friday. After some careful staring – remember that migraine? – my heart sunk.
That wasn’t as-yet-to-dry joint compound. It was water. We had a leak. All along the seam-line of the ceiling patch of drywall.
Ok, get out the ladder and up I go on the roof. These clowns did manage to put plastic over the work area, but ripped a hole where the downspout of the roof is to allow the water to drain off the roof. Great. Did they tape it down? Do something to stop the water from trickling back under the ripped spot to sit in the low spot on the roof? No. Did they NAIL the plastic down and do some sort of curler thing with 2by4’s that made it impossible for me to UNDO it to drain the water off the roof properly? Why yes. Yes, they did.
Now we have wet sheet rock. No, no one returned our phone call yesterday. Yes, tomorrow I will insist they show up with a new piece of sheet rock and pull off the wet section – let it dry for a day – and put up a replacement piece on Tuesday. Is any of this a function of the legitimate work they did on the house? No. It was Friday afternoon laziness. I noticed a house on the next block up that is having extensive work done – they had tons of nice tarping over their house. I guess my expectations were too high.
I’m including some photos of the roof line in progress:
The tear-off and repair starts at the roof line
More blech in progress
First level of waterproofey improvement
The yawning downspout of death
Paper & Wire, up and over the top
A neighbor's nicely tarped house
Our little plastic cover - back view
Downspout punched through plastic - looks more hooptie on the inside of the roofline
10 Things At Once 