roof's broke, you fix it?

I have decided my little two year old nephew needs to stay here all the time-he gives the best squeezes, he's super fun, he's good for my muscles-you should see how toned my arms are!-and he guilts grown men into doing things!

He told L his 'truck' was dirty, so it got cleaned. He told L the grass was 'too big', so it got mowed. Best of all, he told L that the roof was 'broke' and 'fix it?'. And it got fixed. Love my little man!

Our awful hole

Backing up a bit-when we bought our house we knew there was a small but persistent leak in the eaves above the front door. One of the many joys of an old house!! We had our building inspector look into it, and the roof was dry, there was no other sign of damage. It would take a good 40mm of rain for it to start leaking, and was just drip that would leave a small puddle, but some of the wood in the eaves was rotten. We siliconed (by we I mean L... entirely) every screw and nail. Didn't work. We tried everything to try to work out exactly where the leak was coming from. Eventually L and his mate S, the chippy, pulled some of the front eaves down to get a better look up in there. 

Hated it

We (L...) would do something, then we would have to wait for rain. It wouldn't work. We had 2 plumbers come to look, they did stuff. It would rain, and then that wouldn't work. The worst part is, it was right above the front door, on the front verandah, so having big gaping hole in the eaves looked awful. We (L...) eventually narrowed it down to the valley, on the roof join. He was afraid that it was too shallow, which would mean quite a big job to fix. 

Littlest forman trying to creep out

Just as we narrowed it down it stopped raining. For almost 6 months. So we were in limbo-we didn't want to fix the eaves until we knew the leak was fixed. 

In late January one day, L got back up onto the roof, and pulled a bit of the sarking (a type of insulation) out from around the edge of the valley. He noticed that in a few spots it was hanging out a bit. 

Australia Day weekend came, we had over 200mm of rain-and no leak. We had a few hundred more mm of rain over the next two months, and no leak. Such a simple, quick, cheap fix in the end and solved! We think that the sarking would get wet and start absorbing water, and when it was wet enough it would run down the inside of the roof out onto the eaves. 

Progress

Progress

Anyway my littlest man told L that the roof needed fixing. L and S went and played golf this morning, and came back and decided to fix the roof. Today. They started straight way. My nephew was soooo excited-he loves L and S and their 'trucks', and then there were tools-nail guns, circular saws.... he could not contain himself! Unfortunately, they were a board short, so we will pick that up this week, and S will drop back in one day and put it up. Already though it looks so much better! It was such an eyesore right at the front of the house.

Finished for now

Then we will need to sand and paint, but it already looks so much better. So happy that job is (almost!) done.