Roof Eave Day1

Sunday: I watched TV until about 11am and went out to start things. The ladder was a struggle as it barely fits in the space between the roof and the huge AC unit sitting right under the roof eave. That stupid AC until complicated work with the ladder immensely, causing no end of frustration in that first few days. I also neglected to wear gloves in those early days, causing no end of injuries, scrapes, punctures while I assessed what I was up against. At first I pulled off my patch of luan plywood only to find a large amount of ‘debris’ falling out, almost like sawdust. I had no idea what was causing this, so I moved on to removing the full sheet of plywood closing in the roof eave. Well no amount of pushing or pulling would budge that stupid thing. Worse yet, I worried terribly about ‘damaging’ anything. I wanted to be gentle so as to keep from having to do more work replacing stuff, that was unfortunate given how much I did replace in the end.

I realized right then, I didn’t have any kind of ‘wrecking tools’ to smash throw the luan plywood and just tear it off. So I had to stare at the plywood for an hour and determine how it was attached. I finally realized there were two 1×2 trim pieces covering the nails on one side and the side that meets the house. I gingerly tried to get my hammer claw underneath the trim, but no luck it was painted and nailed tight. I got real desperate, look for wood chisels or anything that would give me leverage to pry off the 1x2s. After wrestling with that I finally exposed the plywood and started to push and pull again and it wouldn’t budge. It had a giant hole in it, but it still held tight all around that hole. Luan is very tough in that regard, the rot didn’t extend to an edge in any direction. This forced me to cut it clumsily with a sabre saw as best I could. I cut one edge, and then proceeded to cut the side against he house, nicking a bit of a nailing strip. I worried that might come back to haunt me, but far from it, I had bigger issues to contend with. I cut closer and closer, and the luan wouldn’t give way. I cut it again, closer, closer. I finally gave up and cut right through the stupid nailing strip. This ‘negotiation’ of avoiding, avoiding and finally caving in was a constant pattern I fell into through the repairs. I need to learn to be audacious and outrageous that’s for sure. The luan finally started to give way, but I still pushed, pulled and twisted until it finall broke loose. And the nails, oh the nails they used to attach it were 6 penny finish nails, so long I had to pull them out one by one.

Then this is when things took a turn for the worse. The debris I had noticed earlier, the sawdust that I had seen dropping out seemed to be coming from a funny bundle of saw dust right above the hole. Then I saw ants, all kinds of them scurrying about. I sprayed down the ants, and scraped out the bundle of sawdust, and everything, all the wood, rafters roof deck was wet and rotted. I freaked out.

I don’t know carpentry very well, or roofing so what now? Do we call back the roof repair guys? They charged us $800 for doing very little. I was determined to prove them wrong. I cut some luan patches to close up the areas open to the crawlspace in the attack. I worried so much about animals and insects taking up residence there I even stapled up some fibreglass netting to let the air in and keep the animals out. That ended the day for Sunday. All this I could have done in the weeks and weekends leading up to Memorial Day. But that’s in the past.