The Way the Asphalt Roofing Bounces

Since our house started leaking like a sieve, I thought I should probably fix the problem, or abandon the sinking ship.

One morning last week when it was pouring, I decided to stick my head out the window and play with our window air conditioner (that helps cool the second floor). This thing was causing water to not drip inside, but actually trickle (big difference). This trickle, in turn, was working its way down the wall and out through a first floor light, just three feet from the otherwise leaking living room ceiling.

I originally had thought last year that water just wasn't properly draining out of the air conditioner. I climbed up on the roof, and checked that it was not level (should drain the right way), and that its drain hole was clearing the plywood shelf it's sitting on. Everything seemed fine. So, on this rainy morning last week, I got to see the leak at work. I realized that nearly an inch of water was sitting in the body of the air conditioner! Duh...maybe the drain hole just wasn't working. A few screwdriver pokes later, and water was pouring out the designed drain hole, rather than the improvised one in my wall! One (major) leak down, several to go...

I was (optimistically) sure the tape-popping leak in the living room was coming from a section of flat roof directly above. The roof covering had some nasty cracks, so I didn't need to use much imagination to figure out where water might come from. Yesterday morning, I climbed up on the roof with some mobile home roofing stuff. It comes in a paint can and is a nasty mix of an oily substance, and a very thick silvery / sandy substance. It's so messy, that I actually don't try to clean the paint brush when I'm done (I'm normally quite anal about cleaning and reusing brushes). Of course, this was not the first time I've used the stuff, so I started with a partial leftover can. I painted the whole roof section, and then went and finished off the newly opened can on our well cover.

Last evening, Kimberly asked why I hadn't painted the whole roof...strange... I took a look, and guess what, the old can and the new can did not look the same! Now we have a two-tone roof. Kimberly was quite gracious and said it didn't matter. Then I mentioned that I had painted the little piece that hangs down and can be seen from the ground. I'll be buying another can and paying another visit to the roof. On the positive side, we've gotten 1/3 inch of rain this morning, and no leaks (fingers crossed, knocking on wood).