It’s been a busy month. I finally got my car put away. I had a bunch of projects that competed with that. I had several projects that required access to the attic. One was adding some more insulation and another was reconnecting bathroom fans to their vents after my roof was replaced.
Access to my attic is through the ceiling of the garage. I felt it was safer to keep the car out of the garage while I had the ladder up to the access panel. It’s pretty high so I use an extension ladder against the wall. One Saturday when I was working on this we got our first snow with my car being out in the driveway. I felt bad for her as she got a covering of the white stuff.
On a subsequent day with more rain in the forecast I was tempted to keep the car in there with the ladder against the wall. I really did not want it to get wet. The car was dirty and the water would (and did) just make a mess.
Finally, I thought I was done with trips up into the attic. That was until the morning of Christmas eve. At around 6:30 AM we were laying in bed and heard drip-drip-drip. Going to bed the night before we heard the same thing but this time is seemed different. It was. Water was dripping now inside and onto the nightstand. There was a foot of snow on the roof and a HUGE ice dam from the gutters. The ice was about 6 inches above the top of the gutter and backed up onto the roof. The forecast for the entire day was for more rain. I spent the next four hours resolving the problem which involved clearing the dams and creating alternate channels for the water to flow through away from the trouble spot.
I made several trips up to the attic to pinpoint the location of the leak. Again, I considered keeping the car in the garage with the ladder up against the wall. My better judgment prevailed. The car went out in the rain. On one trip up I must not have had one (or both) of the feet of the ladder positioned with the grippy side down because as I poked my upper body through the access opening suddenly the ladder wasn’t there anymore. I fell straight down probably about 6-7 feet and landed standing up with one foot next to the ladder and one foot inside the rungs of the ladder which was now laying across the garage. The ladder had slid down the wall!
Had the Mustang been in the garage it could have been ugly. The ladder would have absolutely hit the car in some way and, as a result, it probably would not have landed flat on the floor and I would have landed on top of it.
So, the Mustang got a little wet and snowy this time around but at least now it’s warm, cozy and not requiring any body work. As for me, all I had was a little soreness the next day and a small cut on the top of my foot which I think may have come from the fall. Oh, and today I bought a roof rake to clear the snow from the lower 2-3 feet of the roof after each storm.
