I spent half the morning teetering around the loft with a torch, desperately looking for leaks. It's a big space, criss-crossed with wooden roofbeams. There's no lighting and no floor, just the ceilings joists and various bits of wood - old doors and such. The long-term plan is to put up a proper loft ladder and floor at least part of it. For the meantime, getting up there involves climbing a stepladder through a hatch in the hallway ceiling.
So there I am, balancing on a joist, torch in hand, grubbing around in the insulation. Some of this is pink fibreglass batts, but a lot of it is ... well I don't know - it looks like kapok. Piles of yellowish fluff.
It was tricky working out where I was in relation to the leak. Every bit of ceiling I looked at was dry. The roof seemed completely sound, which was good, but the lack of water was mystifying. At long last I found some slightly damp insulation and a small patch of mould. Hurrah! And then I spotted what I hope is the culprit: a plastic pipe exiting from a small header tank (for the hot water tank, I think) had come adrift. It seems to be an overflow pipe. I jammed it back together again, but I will have to go back up armed with gaffer tape and a better light. And maybe some planks! There was one terrifying moment when I lost my balance and nearly trod heavily on the bedroom ceiling. Managed to grab a beam at the last minute, wrenching my shoulder but at least not plunging down through a new skylight.
No comments:
Post a Comment