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This post comes with visuals! Click to embiggen this first picture, then continue reading.

You’re looking at the back of our house. See the double doors? Also see the metal flashing underneath the double doors and the cut-out-and-nailed-back-in-place section of vinyl siding just to the left of the doors? Near as I can figure, those double doors used to be a sliding glass door. In the records of our house there is evidence that there used to be some kind of addition or enclosed deck on the back of the house that’s obviously no longer there. When the previous owners of our house removed the deck, they took out the sliding glass door and replaced it with these double doors. Except that they didn’t bother doing it right.

They left the aluminum sill of the sliding doors in place, and that sill is completely flat. Flat, as in not sloped to allow water to drain. The center post of the double doors rests on top of the old aluminum sill and was (past tense) secured with silicone caulking. The bottom inch or so of the post is rotten and is no longer secured to the sill. The bottoms of the left and right side framing of the double doors is also rotten. The left side plainly shows evidence of a prior rot repair. Only the left door opens. The right door was intentionally hung backwards and secured to the center post so it can’t open. I actually think what they did to the right side is a clever reuse of what was almost certainly a second hand set of double doors.

That flat sill has caused a problem. The rot hasn’t just affected the frame of the door, but also the floor joists underneath as well as the local subflooring. We knew all this when we bought the house two years ago. But, it seems to have accelerated. There’s a hole showing daylight in the header joist that wasn’t there a few months ago. That daylight is coming in from underneath the metal flashing you see under the double doors.

So, a project: Remove the vinyl on the back of the house (I hate vinyl siding, btw) and the original siding that’s still underneath. Assess and repair whatever water damage there might be. Reframe the door area, and go to a single door. Put a window in the upper part of where the right side door is currently. Add sheathing and Tyvek to the outside of the wall and fill the stud cavities with expanding foam insulation. (The back of the house is blasted by horrendous winds every winter, and expanding foam insulation really helps to block air infiltration.) Lastly, re-side the back of the house with… something that isn’t vinyl.

The metal flashing and cut-out-and-nailed-back-in-place section of vinyl siding just to the left of the doors tells me the previous owners knew about the header joist water damage and did nothing to fix it. Let me show you another picture of one of their ‘repairs.’

The short section of black pipe in the center of the pic is part of the original water feed pipe from the well pump. It went from there into the copper piping on the right side of the pic (and you can see how much those pipes leaked by the amount of green on the outside). At some point, and for reasons unknown, they replaced the water feed pipe with a new plastic one. That’s the curved piece of pipe you see coming in on the upper left of the pic. Note how they just cobbled together a connection between the new feed pipe and the old original piping. That feed pipe just stuck out and dangled, unsupported, about three feet from the wall. Also, in the upper right side of the pic you can see a shutoff valve. Specifically, a 1/2″ shutoff valve. A 1/2″ shutoff valve installed between the 1″ water feed pipe and the 3/4″ copper pipe (not shown in this pic) that feeds the house. You can imagine what the tiny shutoff valve did to the water pressure.

This plumbing atrocity has since been re-done to something approaching properness, but every single upgrade the previous owners did to this house is a kludge. You know the old, “Fast. Good. Cheap. Pick two.” They never picked ‘good.’

Thinking about Trey's suicide and my own experience with depression. I tried to write about it earlier but couldn't get past my opening thought: "It's not that I don't want to bother you. It's that I don't think you want to be bothered."

You'd be surprised how often I feel that way. There's no logic to it, no reason, only emotion.

This is why there's seldom a concrete 'why' of suicide.

More as I noodle through it.

A man I really admired took his own life today. I first became acquainted with Trey Pennington through Twitter in late 2009. The interactions I had with him always brought a smile to me face. He was always warm and full of upbeat encouragement.

I met him face to face for the first time a year ago at his Social Story conference in Greenville, SC. It was instructive and a lot of fun. I ended up talking with Trey for a while after the conference. He asked me what I liked and didn't like. He actually listened to what I had to say and made me feel like we were the only people in the room. A rare talent, that.

I saw Trey again a few weeks later when he came up to Greensboro for the 2010 ConvergeSouth conference. He actually came up the night before to attend a Social Media Club Greensboro dinner. Trey himself started Social Media Club Greenville and encouraged opening SMC chapters throughout the southeast. About ten of us sat eating and talking and sharing ideas. Because all of us in the room knew Trey through Twitter we sort of looked at him as a celebrity, while he treated us as friends. The dynamic of the evening was remarkable.

The next day was the first day of ConvergeSouth. Boxes lunches were served, and I sat in a group that included Trey and Elyse Porterfield (now Anderson), the dry erase board job quitting hoax girl. A few people asked to have their picture taken with Elyse, which she graciously agreed to. The funny part is that, at this point, Trey didn't know who Elyse was. When I asked Elyse if I could get my picture taken with her, Trey finally asked why everyone wanted their picture take with Elyse. Someone in the group, I don't remember who, explained it to him. His eyes lit up when he realized who Elyse was. He'd seen the hoax online, but hadn't recognized her in person. He jumped up and said, "I'm getting in on this!" It was hilarious. Everyone around us had a good laugh. (Here's the picture: http://jeffharbert.posterous.com/me-with-elyse-porterfield-officialelyse-and-t)

Looking back, it was at that moment I felt Trey become a friend.

That evening, Trey hosted a dinner for some ConvergeSouth attendees, myself included. I was the first to arrive at the restaurant. I pulled into the parking lot to see Trey on foot, having walked over from his hotel. He saw me get out of my car and walked toward me. He shook my hand and greeted me, then we walked inside. It was 15-20 minutes before anyone else arrived, so for a bit it was just Trey and I enjoying a drink at the bar.

I don't remember what we talked about, probably inconsequential stuff, but it felt like I was visiting with an old friend. That was how Trey made me feel, and I know I'm not alone in that.

I was hesitant to refer to Trey as 'friend' until I sat down to write this. Truth be told, I didn't know him that well. But I know how he made me feel. He made me feel like a friend. When he asked me what I thought about Social Story and actually listened. When he horned in on my picture with Elyse. When he changed directions to walk toward me that night at dinner. Strangers don't do those things. Neither do selfish people. But friends do.

Trey, I don't know much about what happened in the last few months or the events that led to today. I'm sorry that living this life wasn't enough for you. I mean that without recrimination. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be, I'm sorry you had to go through things that made you feel taking your life was the best answer. I can't imagine that kind of pain, and I wish you'd never had to live with it.

Rest in peace, my friend.

We have an old outbuilding on the property, about 12x33ft. Eight telephone pole sections coming out of the ground that form three bays. The left bay is completely enclosed and has what you might call a door. The other two are open at the front but are otherwise enclosed. It was very much built on the cheap by some previous owner. It wasn't really a bad effort except for the roof. The roofing is just a collection of randomly-sized corrugated galvanized sheet metal panels, and they're not secured very well. The old building is not even remotely weather tight. As a result, the boards the roofing is nailed to are very rotten. Given that we're being brushed by the edge of a hurricane, I think you can see where this is going.

We don't have much stored out there, but what there is is going to be relocated to our basement until we can strip and rebuild the outbuilding. We haven't made much use of it precisely because it's in such bad shape. The telephone pole sections will stay, and walls separating the bays look ok and can probably stay, but the rest is getting torn down and hauled off. Maybe even all of it so I can put my eventual shop in that spot. Not anytime soon, though. This is firmly in the 'some day' category.

You already know that, for the second time, we lost some roofing shingles to recent heavy winds. I'm going to climb up there tomorrow to replace them.  I like to make with the melodrama because our roof is so steep, but it's really not that big a deal, though I am trying to forget that I was pretty darn sore sore for two days the last time I had to climb up there.

Anyway. That's not why I'm writing today. Today's topic is about roof damage, but of a different kind I didn't know we had until the most recent storm. The entire perimeter of the roof framing is wrapped in aluminum flashing. The storm tore loose one piece of it, exposing the framing underneath. You can see it in the close-up pic.

I suspect it's much better than it looks, though I won't know for certain until I get up inside the attic space to inspect that area of the roof from the inside. I may also use a small hole saw to grab a core sample of the framing from the outside. The rotted wood is completely dry, which tells me the flashing has been doing its job all these years.There's also no evidence of water infiltration inside the house. Both are good things.

I'll know more later in the week. I'll share what I find out.

…but look at the corrosion of the threads on the unbroken end. Makes me wonder about the rest of the pipe. Replacing the whole thing requires more wall demoliton and temporarily removing the only toilet in the house. Oy.