Sometimes when I learn something, and write a column about it, the payment I receive for the column is enough to pay for the something. But, that may not be the case this time. Still, the (Sudden) Cessation Of Stupidity is actually much better than the alternatives.
When I moved into my house (built in 1918) 23 years ago, it was in pretty good shape. But there were some water stains in odd places along the walls and ceilings. I wondered, should I have the roof replaced? Well, maybe not just yet. Perhaps I could figure out how to stop the leaks.
The worst leak was in the middle of the kitchen, over by the dishwasher. When the rain began, at first nothing happened, but later the ceiling would start to drip. We could put out newspapers, buckets, rags, pots; but when heavy rain began to fall, we had to be prepared for that darned internal leak. Sometimes, but not always. Not even very often. Not often enough to make it easy to find, but enough to be annoying. This leak was four feet from the wall, BUT there was a second-floor outside wall overhead. The outside wall for the second story was set about five feet inside the wall for the first story.
One year I laid out some fiberglass panels on the roof, and that seemed to cut the number of leakage episodes in half. Well, that was good, "but no cigar." The main problem remained: when the rain came in from above, it came out below at places that were NOT OBVIOUSLY connected. Could the rain do that? Could the rain come in at place X, run over at an angle, and drip down at place Y, several feet away from under the place where it went in? Yes, it could. Apparently it did. (See Sketch 1)
Other years, when we had severe storms blowing in from odd angles, such as the east, northeast, or northwest, the rain came in at places and times DIFFERENT from those we were suspecting. Mop it up, fellah.... It seemed to me that when the driven rain came blasting down at heavy rates and severe angles, it would hit the walls, run down, and sneak in at funny little cracks. I tried caulking those cracks, at the bottom of window sills or similarly strange places. Good theory—those cracks did have to get sealed up. But, doing so didn't really stop the leaks.
We had the house painted one year. Still, while certain areas of potential leakage were carefully treated, the sneak paths continued to annoy us. Another year I hired a guy for $250 to put a good tar PATCH on the roof, in the area X, where the leaks were occurring. I never bothered to complain, just because the leaks continued (occasionally) despite the patch.
In 1999, I heard some very suspicious drips that seemed to be right on the ceiling, over my head (T), as I lay in bed. Was I imagining things? I NEVER saw a wet spot on the ceiling. Sketch 1 shows that this is vaguely under the second-story wall, four feet inside the first-floor wall.
But five months later, the ceiling began to lose small swatches of paint in that area. How annoying! What would I do? Ke garne! (That's a common Nepali phrase we bring out when we are PUZZLED! "Ke garne?" just means, "What to do?") As I said, that was in 1999. In January of 2000, I heard another drip, right over my head. And, a different one—then ANOTHER—finally even a little SPLISH. THAT was intolerable! It was WAR!
I went out and bought several slabs of fiberglass corrugated sheeting. I put them on the roof, right over my head, extending for a couple of yards in all appropriate directions. That night, a long soaking rain began, and no drips were heard overhead. Had I solved the problem? Sure....until two nights later, when a strong driving rain led to more sets of drips and splishes. Rats! (I even checked under the fiberglass sheets, and it was completely DRY.)
Then I remembered something my wife had said a year before: "The rain is running over the edge of the downspouts and it's STAINING the new PAINT on the outside wall." She had not said it loud enough, nor insistently enough, but I gradually caught on.
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