Winter Damage

My post for December 21st shows a mammoth icicle hanging off the roof on the side of the house. I have been considering doing something to remove it or reduce it but I wasn't sure how, and I wasn't sure I should. Now I am sure I should.

While in the midst of our restful day yesterday, Susan started yelling that there was water in the dining room and the ceiling was leaking. It was in the very spot where that ginormous icicle was growing.

I quickly threw on my snow clothes and went outside to inspect it. It was of course, on the side of the house where nobody had gone so I had to slog through four feet of snow just to get to the area.If you look at the wall of the house behind the Goliath icicle, you can see ice freezing to the side of the house. I quickly surmised that the water was leaking into the wall at that point. I got up on the ladder and began smashing off the ice with my hammer. I managed to break off a good chunk of the monumental icicle without damaging the roof immediately below it.I next went to work on breaking off all the ice on the house. I have a new respect for people who swing a hammer for a living. Ten minutes of this and I was spent.

The water continued to drip all day and through the night. I came home from the bar today and the leaking appears to have stopped. There is a ladder and a blow dryer in there so I assume Susan has been working in there.

It warmed up tremendously today but it is supposed to snow again tonight. I had plans for getting up on the roof and shoveling snow but decided to wait until daylight. I still have to get the rest of that colossal icicle down without damaging the roof below it. I plan to take a chisel and remove small bits until I take a bunch of weight off it.

Finally, here is a picture of our damage in the dining room. There is some slight discoloration in the light yellow wall to the right of the plate. The anaglyptic paper in the ceiling has bubbled and there is some staining on the dark wood trim. It remains to be seen how we will fix this. But first, we have to make the leaking stop and that means the removal of the voluminously prodigious icicle of titanic proportions.