Posts Tagged ‘gutters’
Peaceful Here
Today is the 4th of July and right now I am basking in the leisurely luxury of a lazy Saturday morning with Delilah asleep on the floor under the dining room table and the hazy low sunrays painting everything in orange hues through the smoky white sky that we’ve been experiencing for days. Cyndie has departed in her red convertible for Hayward to be with her family for the traditional holiday games at their lake community home. I’m back on duty as Wintervale manager for the weekend.
I’ve chosen Bruce Cockburn to accompany me while I write this morning, and am thoroughly enjoying a throwback to 1977 in his live recording, “Circles in the Stream.” I recently rediscovered this old favorite of mine on iTunes due to a gift my son, Julian gave me for Father’s Day/Birthday. That fact makes listening to this seem even sweeter, regardless that it is a digital version playing through a small speaker attached to my laptop and not the vinyl version through the Marantz amp and huge stereo speakers of my youth.
Yesterday was a fantastic mix of accomplishment and leisure on a Friday that felt entirely like a Saturday to me. We received a visit from an acquaintance who we met on the day in 2013 when our horses arrived. Jim saw we had no way to move large bales of hay and offered to help get a custom rig built for our New Holland tractor. Almost two years later and the project is just now coming close to being accomplished, even though we no longer have a pressing need. It’s one of the funnier stories that have evolved in this odyssey of transition to our country life.
After his visit, my plan to start mowing was further delayed by a much-anticipated visit from our excavator, Mike, who showed up in record time —one day after we spoke on the phone!— to re-level the Ritchie waterer that had settled unevenly in the time since it was installed. He was able to offer valuable consultation about bringing in sand for our round pen and the future leveling of the space we have designated for an arena. He makes it all sound so easy, it is inspiring!
It has become clear to me that the installation of a gutter on our barn was done in such a way to be as least effective as possible. It is probably too small, it is not spaced out far enough, and it is too low. Oh, and the down spout is probably too small. Other than that, is has worked okay when it isn’t raining much. Both Jim and Mike pointed out these details in our consultations yesterday.
No wonder we have all these rills being created on the slope from the barn. I just had to throw that in, because I just learned the word, “rills” from Mike. He suggested I keep a spare pile of lime screenings nearby to use for filling washouts after heavy rains. Or I could get the gutter fixed. I’d like to do both.
I eventually got to the mowing and Cyndie picked berries and pulled weeds. Late afternoon, we enjoyed a surprise visit from friends who were out exploring backcountry roads on their motorcycles. The dew point temperature was comfortable in the 50s (F) and the evening was idyllic in a way that rejuvenated our desires to generate momentum toward this place becoming a destination for those seeking solace and inspiration for their lives.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Jeff said.
Yes. It is.
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Mission Creep
Initially, it was only supposed to be gutters for the back side of the barn, but when the company showed up to quote that project, they noticed the gutters on our house. I have had an inkling that there was something wrong with our gutters since last year. They were more than happy to point out the shortcomings. It was a bad design that didn’t last, installed poorly by a questionable company that also didn’t last, so we were told.
I didn’t feel the need to check his facts, because I could see that water dripped from places that didn’t make sense to me. Something wasn’t working right, so we told them to include the house in their quote for new gutters. Mark this down as another home maintenance thing that we didn’t have on our to-do list, and don’t really have the budget to afford at this time.
It’s never stopped us before.
We accepted their quote and authorized the work, which got scheduled weeks out, into late November. They finished the barn in a single day while we were both away at work. When I got home that day, I noticed tracks in the gravel and wondered who the heck had been driving around our barn. I completely missed the new gutter hanging overhead. I think it was because they did such a fine job that it looked like it had always been there and never caught my eye.
After the day they expected to start had passed, I called the company to check on the status, still clueless that they had completed the barn. That was embarrassing. The scheduler was describing the plan for the house, which was fine, but I was wondering about the barn, too.
“We already finished that,” I was told.
Oh.
Anyway, then winter weather arrived, causing the house project to be delayed. I figured that meant until spring, but I have already written here about their plan to work on it regardless the snow and ice. That may be a good thing, I don’t know. I’m sure hoping so at this point, because when they came to uncover the old gutters, they discovered other problems occurring from the ice buildup and suggested one big contributor to the problem was that the venting in our soffits was insufficient.
The project expanded to having them pull the wood to open the soffits for increased ventilation, and then refinishing it with metal fascia and soffits that match the new gutters. How are we going to afford that? Their no-interest, no-payment financing plan, that’s how. Looks like our savings for the next year won’t be going toward an exotic vacation. They’ll be socked away to pay for our new and improved gutters and soffits.
I sure hope the payments don’t end up being due at the same time we will need to pay for the fractured window replacement and the new storage room about to be built downstairs. Something tells me we should be real careful about allowing any mission creep to occur when that builder arrives to do his work.
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Winter Installation
They showed up! The gutter installers surprised me at the house yesterday morning. I guess the snow didn’t intimidate them one bit. I was just about to head out the door, wishing that Delilah wasn’t barking from her kennel so soon after I put her in there, when I heard a roof rake pulling down snow. That’s what she was barking about.
I opened the front door and told the guys they must be gluttons for punishment, trying to un-winter winter.
“You should have seen how bad the home we just finished was,” the foreman replied.
He claimed my house would be easy by comparison. After allowing him to up-sell me on improvements to the soffits for increased ventilation to help mitigate our ice buildup, I left them to their task and headed to work in the cities.
When I returned home in the afternoon, it appeared to me as though he over-sold the ease with which he was going to clean off the roof so they could commence with the work. It’s a good thing they pre-bid the job, because if I was paying by the hour, this ‘working in the winter’ thing would really chafe me. However, the advantage I see in doing it now is that the growing icicles are dead giveaways to areas where the old gutters are poorly installed and creating (or covering) more problems than they are solving.
One problem is just outside our bathroom window, and I’ve been suffering an uneasy feeling every time I looked out when it is dripping wet outside. It always seemed as though more water dripped over the side than washed out the downspout, and too often that drip was coming off the roof-side of the gutter! They definitely weren’t doing the job for which they were installed.
I asked the guy if he could tell if these were very old, because they seemed pretty new to me. He guessed 4 or 5 years and claimed to know who was marketing the gutter cover system these employ. He says they didn’t stay in business. I didn’t do any fact checking, because I want his version to be true, since I am now paying him to replace them!
I just hope the plan to do this work in the winter doesn’t compromise the integrity of the outcome. At least I’ll have plenty of chance to see if icicles form anyplace they shouldn’t, soon after they finish. My favorite local weather blog is making boasts about this winter having the potential of making quite an impact:
Winter is halfway over according to the calendar, but just kicking into high gear on the weather maps. In fact those weather maps look downright brutal at times the next 10 days in the Upper Midwest.
From the sound of our house creaking against the wind gusts outside overnight, combined with everything we have already experienced thus far, I think this winter may have already achieved its notoriety.
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Relative Something 