The Joys of Home Ownership

I know most people say the phrase “Ah, the joys of home ownership” in a sarcastic tone, but I really enjoy it. I work in computers, and for the most part, don’t get to literally get my hands dirty. There’s just something enjoyable about working with and building/fixing tangible items when the bulk of what you build and work with is software.

There have been house projects that I quite honestly haven’t been a fan of, and some I have. One of them, more recently, has been the middle roof. When I say middle, I mean that from the front to the back, there are three different pitches. The front is the highest (covering the master bedroom/bathroom and office), the middle pitch covers the kitchen, den, and part of the back room, and the third and lowest/least steep pitch covers the remainder of the back room and the back porch.

To help facilitate, I spend some time geeking out this afternoon and built a basic 3D model of my house – it’s actually pretty damn close to actual measurements* – maybe off by an inch here, an inch there. Here’s the view from the rear:

 
And a photo where the perspective does the length of roof no justice:

 
That dark / wet looking section is actually about 11′ long – the entire middle pitch is about 32′ long. The rear is 25′, and the front is almost 47′ long.

What aggravates me is the design of the middle. It doesn’t extend the entire width of the house, so there is a flat area. Usually, I guess that wouldn’t be a big deal, except there’s a little wall there! What the hell is it doing there?

As far as I can tell, it’s a water-retention “feature”. And by feature, I mean SNAFU. What happens is that water just builds and as the level rises, it goes underneath the singles, back into the house. Great job there, whoever you are.

So, I’ve been “sealing” the base of the shingles with roofing cement (basically tar). I don’t really mind doing it, I just wish I didn’t have to do this patch.

*If you said “hey, the roof peaks aren’t centered – they don’t line up. You messed up!”, then you’re wrong. The roof peaks aren’t centered. Again, I don’t know why. It’s not really a big deal.