we have become backer rod junkies. having never heard of it before this fall, it has been a quick conversion to fanhood, but we are there, nonetheless.

it’s been a week now since i woke up at midnight to the steady drip, drip, drip in the next room. yes. IN the next room. i threw off the covers, which woke d up immediately. and then i ran into the sitting room.

pulling up the miniblind disclosed what i expected: internal window sills of ice and a steady drip from above. it’s called ice damming.

the ridiculously frigid temperatures have caused the water in the gutter above these twin windows to freeze. we have a heating cable in that gutter, but – and here’s the big but – despite checking it before the snowfall, we didn’t know that the outdoor outlet the cable is plugged into had since failed.

so the water in the gutter froze and then the heat from the house started to thaw the snow on the steeply pitched cape cod roof which then melted toward the gutter – which had somehow misaligned itself – and, with the ice filling the gutter the water had nowhere to go but into the window structure behind the wall and voila! an interior (of the double hung windows) filled with ice. this – as you may guess – is not our favorite thing.

so, there we were, at midnight getting our equipment together. david with his 32 degrees base layers and boots and the infamous nike jacket, the ladder and plastic pitchers from which to pour hot water – and me, with my blow dryer, lots of old towels, a heater, a rubber spatula, mallet, and anything i could get my hands on that might waylay water from actually spilling INTO the room.

it was 2:30am before we went back to bed after d had climbed the ladder about 57 times in the frigid night air, melting the gutter and the downspout and replugging the heating element wire into an extension cord.

and then it all started again the next day. and the next. and the next. we are hoping for a 50 degree day, but it doesn’t look promising.

i’m writing this ahead so i am hoping that we have gotten it all under control by this time – hoping the backer rod and the towels and the cold-weather flex paste and the overburdened gutter guy have – in combo – solved this. but, for right now, as i write this, we are still in midstream, dealing with it. yep. midstream.

it is my hope (against hope) that the inordinate amount of backer rod we now proudly own will do the trick – being impermeable to water and such. we are counting on that impermeable thing. we shall see.

but in the meanwhile, we are nevertheless hope-filled-backer-rod-fans and will not hesitate to do the backer rod dance should backer rod help to solve this issue.

ice damming is a royal pain. we do our best to avoid it. every time it snows i hopehopehope it won’t be followed by a period of melting and then frigid sub-zero temperatures. not to mention a failing outlet or a gutter that has shifted out of alignment. eh.

we try to keep it in perspective, though, as we punt through our improvised fix. we feel fortunate, even as we damn the ice damming.

and mostly, i’m trying to decide if we should publicize my new backer rod theme song (to the tune of “edelweiss”) “backer rod, backer rod, every gap you are sealing. backer rod, backer rod, our love for you is revealing…joints and gaps will be waterproofed, that’s no spoof, we’re cheering…back rod, backer rod, you can’t know how much we’re feeling.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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