Love My Home, But Not My House

I've said it before.  And I've said it again.

Once again, I've been reminded that if there's going to be a problem with my house, it'll be a problem with plumbing.  And if not plumbing in the traditional sense, then still, a problem with getting water from point A to point B.

Or getting water OFF of point R, which in tonight's case, is our stupid, flat roof.

Two summers ago, Cindy and I totally revamped our house's drainage system - dug trenches, ran pipe, whisked the water away from our foundation.

But we have a flat roof, and live in a town called Fircrest. You may notice that the first half of Fircrest is Fir. As in Fir Trees. And there are a lot of them. Our house used to have 7 of them in the yard, but we've had several cut down. Who ever approved the plans for a house with a flat roof in this community, was obviously some kind of fraud artist... I think it's time to open a "cold case" file on it, find the guy, and make him pay!!

With as much rain as we've had over the past month or two, I knew that our roof was very likely holding some standing water. The downspouts that feed our new-and-improved drainage system get plugged far more often than you'd think they should. (Personally, I think they should NEVER get plugged... Shows how much my thinking is worth...)

Today was actually sunny. At one point today, Cindy saw a bird fly on to our roof and start splashing around, enjoying a gigantic bird bath.

So I grabbed the ladder and headed up... And found the worst water-on-the-roof problem I've ever seen. It was over 6 inches deep in the deep parts. I pulled the pine needles away from the one working downspout (actually, I cleared all 3, but only one was working) and it had so much water flushing down it, that it made a whirlpool in the surrounding roof-lake.

I tried plunging and snaking the other two downspouts, to no avail. Finally we got the hoses up on the roof and started a couple siphons to help get the water off the roof.

It was a horrible, frustrating experience, but there was some beauty to be found...

It turns out that a roof-lake at dusk makes for some pretty awesome pictures!









Tyler and Kaylee had a great time skipping pinecones across the lake, but I just really want to have the time - preferably when it's not raining - to clear out all the downspouts again...