When the weather gets nice, we live on our screened-in porch. It’s all kinds of cute and homey and summery. And the best place to have a gin and tonic. It is also so much work to keep clean and maintained that I sometimes curse it. When we had it rescreened many years ago, I wanted it painted white. Between primer and paint, it took THIRTEEN gallons. If you saw it’s teeny size, you would think I’m lying, but that raw wood sucked up that primer, spit it out and said “more please.”
A couple of years ago, we noticed the paint on the ceiling kept peeling in the same spot, and we would scrape it and patch the paint job. Then we noticed it was wet. Then we said screw it. We own this porch, it doesn’t own us. By the end of last summer, chunks of paint would fall down, and if you sat in the corner it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to put a hardhat on.
This called for action. Ya think?
Back in the day, The Big Daddy was a roofer, and considers himself to be an expert at finding leaks. After many trips up to the roof, he couldn’t find where the water was coming in and said, “It’s the goddamn shingles on the house. The water has to be getting in underneath the shingles.” He took me outside to show me the goddamn shingles and pointed out the goddamn gutters, too. Home ownership sometimes always wears on his last nerve.
I called a repairman who found a hole in the corner of the roof about the size of the tip of your finger, and with some checking and double checking to make sure, he put some caulk in it and we should have no more problems. Total cost $50.00. I was so happy we got off that cheap that I TOLD EVERYONE, and in the telling The Big Daddy would huff and puff about this leak that eluded him.
When The Leak Hunter came back for the fix, The Big Daddy kept him company. He told BD that he’s been doing this for eight years, that leaks are a very tricky business, and he once found the source of one 200 feet from where the ceiling stain was. Wow. I guess.
The Big Daddy took a liking to that repairman, for in the midst of fixing this troublesome roof of ours, he restored his customer’s bruised Man Card.
