Last night I was so very industrious...it was fun.
After I fought off the mosquito hordes and attacked the jungle like back yard (which looks rather respectable now I must say) I played Madame Fixit with our roof. Somewhere in the flashing about the vent for our bathroom fan there is a crack which has started to leak rather a lot when it rains and did some serious damage to the bathroom floor while we were away. There's no point in fixing the floor until the leak is looked after, and my usual thing of ignoring it has done nothing to stop the leaking, so it was time to try and fix things since I had a nice hot dry day to do it.
I was told how to try to fix it by a coworker who had the same issue and it can be a rather cheap and easy fix. The best part is that I got to climb up on the warm roof at sunset, ogle at the view a bit and then get busy with a bucket of tar roofing patch goop and a spatula to fill and smooth any obvious cracks or gaps. Tar smells awful, and it was like dipping your hands in black toothpaste, but it certainly wasn't difficult. Just sticky on a level I cannot fully or properly describe.
In the end, with all the things to patch I used the whole damn gallon of goo and patched all around the flashing for the bathroom vent as well as the other 4 roof attic vents which have been known to leak a tiny bit sporadically due to curling about the edges of the vents and shingles. I've been told that if I had called a "roof dude" they would just do what I did before they replaced the actual vents or flashing themselves, as this first fix is often all that is needed - apparently this is step one in trying and fix any roof leaks. I can't screw anything up with what I've done, so we had nothing to lose. I am crossing my fingers that smearing on a smooth patch of tar should do the trick....at least I know if this doesn't work we have to call a real roofer to fix it on a more serious level. We're trying to put off any more serious repairs for a few years until we do the whole shingle/roof thing and have at it all at the same time. I figure a bit of my time and a $10 can of roof patch is definitely doable in our budget. :)
And I quite enjoyed it. I got to be outside all evening and work with my hands. I've decided that I'm taking a few days to catch up on the house and the zillion things that need doing before hopping back into my MSc stuff on the weekend. I guarantee that all the other chores will be far less sticky than this was :)
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