M iXi M            

January 14, 2001  Yet More Ice...          

If you have not read about ice. I have been learning yet more about it this year. Check out  the Ice Digest from last year.

Again I have glaciers on my roof. I have been chopping them off with theax. I could have sworn that I did this last year with no ill effect to theroof. My contention this year remains that I just don't know my own strengthanymore. I have been chopping the ice off my roof with an ax.




DON'T !!!


It was 4 PM on Saturday when I discovered this hole, big enough to put my boot in.  I had just been up there chopping ice, but I am now pretty sure this was three days old and had only started to leak with the warm weather. I gathered what scraps of roofing I had in the yard.  Then I did a survey of the roof and found about eight more holes. over 18 feet of the roof. I don't know my own strength.  I didn't have enough tin.

So I called True Value. I know the number by heart. I was fully aware that they were closing in an hour, and wouldn't want to bring any roofing up,but I asked anyway. I wish I had a picture of the roofing on the Beetle.The Beetle looks so classy as an all purpose hauler.

Anyway, I got six sheets of metal back here, by 6 p.m. and it was fully dark, but up on the roof I went, determined. Of course It took all of my rock climbing skills, I have never been rock climbing, to get up there. I had to use the roof screws and the hole itself as hand holds.

After about and hour and 8 or 10 slides off the roof onto the hard snow bank below, I had gotten one sheet almost fully in place over the biggest hole. I gave up.

The falls weren't so bad really. It was the safest way off the roof. I couldn't get down to the ladder because if I lost control of the slide I would not only fall but I would meet the ladder at some unspecified speed and angle. Those men with some imagination will realize what a terror that is. So to get off the roof, I would edge myself down, until I lost control and then I would just slide and drop. It was about six feet. 

So I gave up. I came inside and had dinner, and called Pete. It was embarrassing to admit my predicament, but  I knew help was the difference between all day, and an hour or two.

We agreed to meet for breakfast the next morning. I hadn't been to the bar since I had been back. It was nice to see everyone. I didn't freely share why I was there, to meet Pete, to fix the roof, that I had chopped holesin. When Pete told Kevin, he said, "Use the blunt end of the ax." I said,"I just don't know my own strength." That's my story and I am sticking toit.

We fixed the roof easily in just under two hours, after we tied a ladderto the roof. I would have done that the night before, but I didn't have agood rope.

So it is all over, and I have learned more lessons about ice. I bought an ice chopper. Maybe that will get just the ice and not the roof. Also as easy as those drops off the roof seemed, I was a little sore last night. Thatsnow bank is hard. It's like dropping six feet to concrete. Kevin warnedme about this, also after the fact.



I said to Pete, "It's a good thing I got the red screws to match this roof, or else the whole thing would look kind of trashy."

MiXiM

In other roof news. I had heard from the last owners that the snow wouldbuild up on the roof and then in the middle of the night all let go in onerumbling avalanche.  I hadn't had one last year, so I gave hope. Lastnight the other side of the roof that I hadn't shoveled let go. It was reallyexciting. I had climbed on it early in the day thinking it was pretty stable.It would have been bad if I had triggered that fall and come down with it.One more note of caution I suppose.

Also I talked to Kurtiss about my roof incident. He said he had been chopping ice off of a house, and had taken off a big patch of shingles. I told Pete about this, and told him we were just city kids who never learned how toshovel roofs properly.

And more. It is worth noting that I am not the only one with ice issues.When I got the roofing from True value they showed me the patch they hadshoveled that day. Pete went home and shoveled his roof after we patchedmine, andmy neighbors were all out with the shovels and snow rakes this weekend.