Day 130
For the majority of the first floor house renovation, I was relegated to cleanup crew. Not being the most experienced handyman, I accepted this role graciously. However, I must admit, the time I put in working on creating the coops in the barn did give me a glimmer of hope that one day my handyman skills would be considered adequate.
With an aging barn, there were many, many opportunities to improve my skills. As usual, I had a vision of what I wanted to do and what I thought it would be when I was done. More often than not, the difference between my vision and reality was quite dramatic.
Considering we had just poured money into grading work around the barn to minimize water getting in and soaking the inside of the barn, we wanted to do everything we could to make sure the project worked. We decided to complement the gravel grading job with fixing up the leaking gutters and downspouts.
When it rains, we noticed major leaks where the old aluminum gutter seams existed. Yay! Another project!
We decided to try this one ourselves. You ever see those TV infomercials where a simple tape or paste application seals holes quickly and fixes leaks instantly.
They don’t.
But before we figured that out, my wife and I tag-teamed the job with an extension ladder. We cleaned and dried the area where the seams were, slapped on a healthy amount of paste, and hoped for the best. Within a few days, some scattered showers gave us a very false sense of security. Our amateur plumbing job worked.
For a very short time.
The second storm came with a bit more rain and a much different result. Not only was the leaking back. It seemed to have gained strength. The rainwater didn't even male it to the downspouts at the end of the barn and were drip-dropping all the way the length of the barn, slowly but surely eroding away the grading work we just completed.
While somewhat proud of our attempt, we were a bit over our heads. We decided that we should probably leave major exterior work to professionals.
At least for now.
