Tag Archives: fix

Watch Out Below!

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While I-pods are a great way to catch up on the numerous webinars posted during working hours, they can be a bit dangerous when the listener removes themselves from the world around them. Let me give you a little example of what I mean by this.

Last weekend, my son and his pregnant (yes, I’m proud!) wife needed my husband’s (Randy) assistance updating his 1/2 bath prior to listing his home for sale.  Here’s the setup: 2 story bungalow with a basement. 2nd story bathroom directly above main floor bath using same waste pipe that drain straight down into waste pipe in basement floor. Becuase 2nd floor bath had pvc pipe and basement had the old cast iron, the best thing to do was replace the whole pipe at the same time. So, of course, they pulled the waste pipe out of the main floor bath, disconnecting the 2nd story bath from the waste pipe in the basement. All’s well and Randy is getting ready to reinstall from the 2nd floor waste to the basement by handing the pipe down to son Ryan in the basement. [photopress:ryan_and_randy_in_the_shit_hole.jpg,thumb,alignright]Great great plan, all is going well, but my lecture was over, I removed my headphones, and ran up the stairs to use the only operating bathroom in the house except that, you guessed it, one flush and whoosh, down thru the 1st floor bath directly into the face of my darling son Ryan, bounced off him and onto his computer and everything on the desk that he was working on!

 The moral of the story is: Don’t visit your son! 

Holy flying skylights! Why I take good care of my contractor buddies…

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I’ve been trying to get around to writing this post for a week but have been distracted otherwise. Anyhow, I wanted to make sure and point out a little something that anyone who owns a home with skylights might want to check. When we had the oh so lovely windy weather last week (before the ice and snow) I had an eye opening experience with a skylight on my 3.5 story house. I’ll provide a photo so you can see the pitch of this roof and get what I’m talking about later.

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So, thankfully a neighbor was kind enough to run down to my house to inform me that one of the skylights off the top of my house was dangling off the roof a bit being held on to the roof by a gutter. I ran upstairs to see how much rain was pouring in the top of the house and saw that thankfully at that point it wasn’t much – but more clouds were headed our way from the west and south. Frantically I called one of my close contractor buddies – crap!!! – no answer!!! So, I called another local one but he was headed out of town. Thankfully he gave us the number of one his usual people that helps with his projects but when he showed up the ladder he brought wasn’t large enough. So, back to plan #1 with more frantic calls to the first contractor. I got lucky. He answered and was actually in the vicinity and he just so happened to have one of his longest ladders with him.

The 3 workers showed up and two of them ended roped up to the tie off on the top of my house while one stayed inside to help with screwing in screws that HAD APPARENTLY NEVER BEEN INSTALLED when they put the skylights on my house! We got lucky that no damage occurred to the skylight that came off – 1. it popped off like a bottle cap [photopress:bottle_cap.jpg,thumb,alignright] and landed on its back, and 2. it didn’t fall to the ground (concrete driveway) below. While they were up there they went ahead and secured all 3 skylights (yes, ALL of them had been left with little to no method of attachment). The contractors applied silicone to seal the windows and then they screwed them in properly. Little did I know that I was living on borrowed time with these things – and we got really lucky that they’d not blown off earlier. As you can see in the photo I live on a hill and my house gets buffeted by winds regularly.

So, note to homeowners and agents… If there are skylights on your home (or one you’re helping buy or sell) it’s worth it to check to see if they are secured. It doesn’t take much to do after seeing what these contractors did. Secondarily, I was also told that skylights are a common method of break-ins on homes because many of them aren’t installed very well. A good maintenance tip and addition for your annual gutter and roof check.