So I get the strangest maker calls. So my wife went riding this morning and I guess there was some construction crew working on the roof of the indoor ring. They were dropping nails into the ring from above. So she asked if I could bring a large magnet to sweep the ring (um, why does she thing we have one?). Anyway I figured scrap proofgrade and some 1.125” neodymium magnets and some hot glue would work perfectly. The string is just a loop so you can drag it behind you (it’s a big area).
And I used premium for the caution symbol and magnet and text. Mostly because I wanted to invest zero time on this.
Oh and yeah in hindsight the engrave should be on the other side but it’s fine. Not like I am selling this thing. I did test it in my shop and it picked up lots of screws/bolts/Allen wrenches/etc
For what we just paid, they should have hand forged monogrammed nails. The job not only is a major gutter upgrade but while we had to replace all the fascia boards we changed them all to Azek, so we will never have this issue again.
There were several places you could reach into the attic from the outside…
That’s what cost our siding & painting guy the contract to do the roof. He didn’t finish cleaning up. Left a bag of trash he told us specifically he’d be back to collect. Three weeks later it went into our trash. It wasn’t having to toss the bag that was the issue but telling us he’d be back and then not.
He also left the guard for his jobsite saw. I didn’t bother to send it back to him. He did come back for the saw and some extra flashing & siding materials.
I was on the roof today before the roofers come next week (to deactivate the solar hot water panels) and noticed a bunch of nails on the roof from where they did some work on the chimney chase (wood sided chimney as the flues are all stainless steel for the two fireplaces & furnace). My wife would have had a cow about that.
The guy who did get the roof contract has one of those rolling magnet pick ups. He’s got a guy whose sole job seems to be to walk around the houses they do picking up nails. He says the final cleanup isn’t that bad when they do it that way.
The gutters on this house have been crap since we move in 5 years ago. I called one place to clean them and the guy complained that they had covers on them, so I said “fine, take the covers off”. I don’t remember exactly what happened with that, but I do know he did a half-butted job, removed a few covers, left most of them alone, and didn’t clear any blockages. The rain continued to spill over the side and right in front of our door for the next several years.
Then we had a major wind storm that ripped some flashing off my roof and I called a gutter/roofing place to fix it and also clean the gutters properly. They too complained about the covers. I realized that their business model is based on speed. They send a truck with a large number of low paid laborers to swoop in, clean everything, and get to the next job as fast as possible. When they hit any kind of delay, they just don’t want to do the work at all. The main guy kept saying “it’s going to be expensive because we’d have to take the covers off”. I’d say “fine, take them off and do what you need” and he’d say “well, it’s going to be more expensive because we’d have to take the covers off”.
Eventually I opined that I didn’t think these gutters work well even when they’re clean and I got him to go up and inspect the situation. They did find that they were not pitched properly and my roof needed some other minor repairs. Maybe it was unnecessary to replace the gutters, but I plan on living here a long time and I want things to be built correctly.
I have a perfect view out the office window here to watch as the tree in our front yard dumped all of its leaves directly into the brand new gutters a week after they were installed, and they are now matted down with rain.
So the primary problem here was the original gutters were way too small for the house. So that combined with crud resulted in frequent clogging. Then over the decade the inappropriate use of caulk to glue the ends onto the gutters resulted in leaking out the end caps of the gutter. However then they put the fascia boards too close resulting in water sitting between the end cap and the fascia board. And of course it got wicked up on the inside of the fascia board by capillary action… The new gutters are formed with end caps so no leaking. And they are 6" wide gutters with 4" downspouts so should A) not clog due to the much larger capacity and B) not leak if they do. These also have integral leaf covers.
Ooo, I have some broken magnets and may borrowyour idea. I’ve had some word done around the house and have been finding nails and long screws in the soil.
Thanks for a good idea! (You’re always full of them.)
Ooooo, I think I might take up a new hobby! I have quite a few broken neodymium magnets sitting around the house from failed attempts from trying to make “hold downs” for materials in my Glowforge back in the day.
All this talk about gutters brings to mind the year when we had a particularly big freeze. It had been snowing lightly, then the temp started dropping and froze the snow onto our metal roof. I came home at the end of work that day to see that long rectangles of ice had come down the ‘chutes’ off of the roof. They took the gutters off right with them before planting themselves upright in the snow in the yard like elongated tombstones. After the novelty of the scene wore off, the reality of the damage set in.
Well, I’m a teacher. My life went from primarily face-to-face to all virtual overnight. It’s been hard to want to stay in front of a computer “for fun” after stuck in front of one for 10+ hours for work every day. I can’t really complain because I have a job and get to work from home. I am very fortunate.
The good news is that most of my stuff is now developed, and the myriad of software programs we all had to learn I have mostly learned. Computer work has become the new normal.
Now it’s time to come up for air, find fun in computer use again, and laser all the things. Ha! It’s so fun to see so many familiar folks are still here and also see so many new ones too.
I can sure understand burnout when you use the same ‘delivery’ system for work and for play. Having grandsons who are now learning remotely I have wondered often about all the work and planning that had to be implemented to pull off such a massive salvage of our educational system. Glad you’re seeing more than just a train at the end of the tunnel and we’ll look forward to seeing you around here more often, again.
Indeed, there are still quite a few of us ‘old timers’ around here. Cheers!
