I really didn't need this
This morning, I was rejoicing in the fact that I accomplished what I set out to accomplish this week, relative to work anyway. I was saving a program to VCR from TiVo for my girlfriend at work, so I was sitting in the living room watching said program as I saved it. I happened to look up at the ceiling, at which point the words "Oh.My.God!What.The.Hell?" escaped my lips. We have cathedral ceilings throughout the house. On those ceilings is tongue-and-groove cedar. And as of this morning, lots of wet spots. I freaked out. I went to check the rest of the house. Every room on the east side has several wet spots on the ceiling. The west side is fine. This is not good. For 20 years we had a cedar shake roof. We decided it was time to replace it about three years ago. We went for a very nice, 30-year warranty, composition tile roof. And for the first time since we built the house, we have leaks. And I'm talking dripping onto the brick hearth leaks. No more rejoicing. Oh, and did I mention, it's snowing to beat the band today? Yeah, it is.
I told The Spouse about the problem when he called me at 9 AM. He's freaking out, of course. These leaks are weird, too. There are a couple of wet spots where you might expect to find them - where the roof and outside wall meet - but the worst ones are about 5 feet from the eaves, on a roof that is one straight run - a 60 foot by 15 foot rectangle, with no valleys, no skylights, nothing that could be the source of a leak. It's just one huge expanse of roof. The roofer is no longer roofing. He's general contracting, building custom homes. He isn't in the phone book any more either. But, this being a small town, it didn't take me long to find him. He's in the middle of remodeling a space for his girlfriend's saddlery business, which just moved from our mall to this new space. I found the new space, saw his truck outside it, and went inside. He greeted me with "Hi Gina, how are you?" to which I replied "not so good". I told him about the problem, and he was genuinely alarmed and puzzled. I told him I had looked for any ice dams, and there isn't an icicle to be found on our eaves. There is a small buildup of ice around the chimney, and it might account for one of the leaks in the living room, but it could not be responsible for the leak 30 feet away at the end of the house. He told me that they used a bunch of snow and ice shield when they did the roof so that ice dams wouldn't build up. He was stymied. He said he'd come look at it - when it warms up some, and the snow is off the roof. We have about 3 inches on it right now. How we go about solving this is beyond me. What's worse is, what do we do about the wet cedar ceiling? It's going to stain and look terrible. But they don't make this stuff anymore, and it wouldn't match the rest of the ceiling if we did replace it. And then there's the insulation. How wet is it? I suspect it's very wet. Hopefully, it will just dry out this summer, but still.
To make matters worse, I called Oldest Son, who is our homeowner's insurance agent, and asked him what to do about filing a claim. He suggested we wait until we figure out why it's leaking and if the roofer is going to fix it. Consumed with this problem, the date escaped me. I completely forgot today is his 35th birthday. I am such a bad mom. I called him just a bit ago, and got his voice mail. He's probably mad at me. I don't blame him one bit.
So, that's my day. How's yours going?
