The Saga of the Drip

 A large portion of yesterday was spent trying to find the drippy spot in the roof.  

Lemme back up a little...

I was sitting here doing something or other yesterday morning when Hubs goes out back for a smoke and I hear swearing.  Then he walks past me into my bathroom and I hear him puttering in the linen closet.  As he passes me again with towels I ask him what's up.  There's a puddle on the floor in the sunroom/smoking room.  

I follow him out and look down.  Yep.  Puddle.  I look up.  Yep, the ceiling is dripping in several places along the seam of the wood ceiling.  We clean it up, place buckets, and make plans to figure it out later.

The only thing to do, we decide, is to finally cut a hole into the attic above the sunroom.  When they built this addition and added on the sunroom, they built a solid wall between the attic above the office and the attic above the sunroom.  Yeah, I know... Derp.  

Here I need to back up further...

When we moved in here, there was no access to the attic above the office addition.  (They used the office as a master bedroom, we made it an office.)  In 2015, when Hubs re-insulated the whole house, he cut an access hole into ceiling of the walk-in closet off the office.  He then insulated the attic above the office, but at the time, he didn't want to go the extra step of cutting a hole through to the sunroom attic.  It wasn't a priority then.

Skipping back to the present...

Once properly caffeinated and nicotined, he got the ladder and went up through the closet access hole to assess the situation.  He then made a plan.  He came back down - never an easy feat.  Plan in place, he marched back up the ladder and I handed stuff up to him through the hole.  He cut the hole through the particle board wall using an electric saw thing and through he went.  

He took a good gander, walked all around (balancing on the boards since there's no floor and he doesn't relish the idea of falling through the ceiling), moved some insulation around, and found... nothing.

Back out the hole he cut and a reverse of the process of getting everything up there.  

Never ones to let a mystery lie, we pondered where to proceed from there.  We are both loathe to cut holes in the cedar wood ceiling of the sunroom.  Out to the deck to attack the problem from the outside.  Still can't see anything wrong with the roof.  Time to take off the fascia and peek into the inches wide crevice from there into the attic.  We've tackled that fascia before and it's not an easy task, but we do it.

Still can't see anything wet.  But the damn space is filled with spiders.  Brown recluse spiders.  Fuckers.  Gah!  Hubs suits up with long sleeves tucked into rubberized gloves and, after he sweeps away the visible spiders, starts pulling insulation through the crevices.  

HUZZAH!  Wet insulation!  Soaking wet insulation.  Once he pulled that crap out, and shined the flashlight above where it was, he saw a single drip, drip, drip.  

Near as I can figure it, we had those really hot days, which probably melted the tar and made shingle slip slightly to uncover a nail hole, through which the water could drip.  

Sometime between now and the next rain, which is a few days off, Hubs will get on the roof, find the hole, and fix it.  He's handy like that.  (I can't help him there.  Vertigo.)  

Some things to note from all this: 

1)  If you're building a house, put some damn access holes into your attic and make sure every part of your attic is accessible.
2)  Roofing nails stick through your attic ceiling and are especially ouchy to your back if you have to walk around up there.
3)  Laying a basic floor in an attic even if you don't think you'll be up there regularly is probably still a good idea.  
4)  If you can't climb ladders and suffer from vertigo, it's good to have a man around.  ;o)