The "U.S. Dept of Grants," apparently wants to award me $15,000. All they need is my banking info. After being strung along for awhile, however, Caller hangs up when finally shown that there is no such agency.
Spammers don't get through yo my house. My answering machine answers even if I'm home. It states that I'm screening calls. Usually they hang up. My first wife and I got a series of obscene phone calls once. We handled it by keeping the mouthpiece of her clarinet near. When we got one we would blow the mouthpiece very loud into the phone. Those calls stopped soon. They had to. They couldn't hear.
I imagine that as room full of people named Grant. Ulysses Grant would figure prominently in a painting on a wall.
Hauled another 560 pounds of trash to the landfill. That means my porch is mostly clear of it all. I had to leave a few bags because they didn't fit in the car. It's also one more thing taken out of the room I'm working on, which buys me a little more space to work. Hopefully soon I'll have finished with the air compressor in there and that can come out and maybe even I can get the unusual hybrid shop vac/wet-n-dry separator rig out as well. I'll need it back in there when it's time to clean up after drywalling, but for now it would be good to have it gone. I'm not going to be able to get the drywalling done as soon as I'd hoped because of a recurring leak in the roof above. I need that fixed before I drywall over the space. The problem is that the house was extended and the leak is between the new roof and the old slate. When it leaks, which isn't often and isn't severe, the water ends up on the old slates which then do what they were designed to do - guide it to the bottom so it can drip off. It's just that because of the extension it drips off onto a ceiling joist rather than outside the house. I think what I need to do is break a few inches off the very bottom slates so I can put drip trays in the attic. At least way if I do get another leak I can catch the water in a tray rather than having water dripping into a space I can only get at by pulling down the ceiling.
If your slates are perpendicular to the newer, flat roof, there should be a one piece strip of galvanized metal flashing creased at 90°under the slates and over the roofing material, if i see it correctly. Otherwise, a can or two of Henry's layered on fiberglass mesh in the leaking areas is usually very effective but a messy job. Put down a layer of Henry's then press the fiberglass mesh into it, then another layer of Henry's on top of that, wherever you think the leaks are. Clean up with spirits.
I think you're seeing it pretty much as it is, even if slightly off on the angle. The sides are more or less vertical, the skirt on the original roof runs at maybe 30 degrees to vertical and the new roof over the top runs at maybe 20-30 degrees off horizontal. You're right about the flashing that should be there, I'm just not sure exactly what is there because the shingles are on top of wooden strips (I say strips, they are strong enough for roofers to stand on) and I can't see right into the corner. To see from above isn't practical because it needs ladders much bigger than anything I own, and confidence working at that kind of height that I don't have. Is your suggestion something that can be pressed into place from below? I can get at the undersides of the supporting wood strips, although there are a few supports running perpendicular that take the weight of the strips that could make it tricky to get a decent seal all the way across. My primary concern here is that, whatever I have done to fix the current leak, if anything shifts or wears out and I get another leak, I don't want my first indication of a leak being water damage to the ceiling in this room. Hence my thinking that if I can cut away maybe 4" from the bottom of the slates I can put water trays down in the attic so that any water that does leak in will be caught by the trays, rather than by the ceiling below. The amount of water coming in isn't huge - yesterday we had sustained heavy rain and probably had no more than half a cup of water coming in - I just don't want to find a slow buildup of water starts causing ongoing issues.
The work should be done from above, actually. But if the leak is that small, there are stop-leak products that can be poured and that find the leak. They are pretty expensive but work well. Getting up on the roof seems essential for a one-time fix but trays do seem an option.
If it was me I think i would remove the lower slates and install flashing which is flexible and durable. A semi-intensive job.
That sounds like a good plan, except for the "I would" bit. I think I prefer the option that says "I would pay someone else to..." I'm not sure exactly what is there, but if there isn't decent flashing I think now is a good time to arrange to make sure there is...
Note: It's ok to put new flashing over old. But, ideally, the slates should be cut a few inches above the roof joint and the flashing exposed because it reflects the sun and protects the roofing material. Where the flashing covers the newer roof it can be mostly left shiny so you have a creased channel across the joint.
Trip to Cal, retirement postponed til around May. So much work piled up, and digging in for winter. Move in with sister and fetch/cut firewood. Lord willing.
Yesterday, our school had the character dress-up day (aka Halloween). One of our students, who's very black, was going around school in his usual clothes. When asked why he did not dress up, he said he was dressed up as Justin Trudeau. For a kid in Grade 9, that was amazingly clever.
Bought another consignment of fiberglass - was down to the last four rolls and thinking I need more than that to insulate the room I'm working on. So now I have the task of shifting 20 rolls of fiberglass up two flights of stairs and stacking them in the attic, before I can get busy putting hanging wires in place to support the fiberglass. I think I'm going to have to reroute a couple of cables (annoying but thankfully not a huge task) and then I should be a big step closer to drywalling. While I was getting the fiberglass I also picked up a blade for my oscillating tool that I hope is strong enough to cut through my slates without wrecking everything in sight. I know my angle grinder would do it, I'm just afraid of what else my angle grinder might trash in a confined space. Cutting the slate is good, cutting into the outer roof is bad, and cutting into myself with a diamond cutting wheel (entirely possible in such a tight spot) doesn't seem like a great end to the process.