In this episode, we are fixing our roof leak.
Watch the video to see where we are up to with this roof fix.
Roof Leak
Because we had to buy this unit as is, because it was like a mortgagee sale, we had to buy the mezzanine as is, and that turned out that it wasn’t safe and had to be pulled down and everything. There was another thing too, there was a roof leak. In the video we show you where it is – up in one corner. It was leaking quite badly in the winter and pouring down. You see it’s got a little bit of surface rust on there. So we went up on the roof last week when it’s been dry and it was just full of this grit stuff. It was probably from the sandblasting place back in the day. It used to blow across and then sit on the roofs and then the rain would wash it down.
So there was a lot of this sandy sandblasting grit that we had to take out first. And then we had one of those blades, abrasive discs, and just cleaned up all the old silicone and stuff. Cleaned it all up. It looks all right. Some of the pop rivets are gone, so we’ve got to get up there later and just finish it off, clean it and get it all sorted so we can seal that up before the rain starts coming. Because it was just pouring down here and dripping on whatever’s going to be down here.
Replacing the Pop Rivets
We got up on the roof again, got a little bit cooler weather, which is good. We ended up washing all the gutters out the other day. And also cleaned up with the abrasive disc. We’ve left it a while, so a little bit of rust has come through. We’ve just got to replace some pop rivets now, get it strong again. Maybe if we could shove some silicone under the joint in between them, that would make it super strong for the future too.
You can see the joint in the video, how all the pop rivets are gone, so we’ve just got to replace some of those and shove some silicone in between that, if we can. And then silicone it all up under there as well. Hopefully that’ll be all sweet and good to go in the future.
Siliconing
After we have replaced all the rivets and put a bit of silicone underneath, now we just got to work our way down. A bit like icing a cake, and then you want to rub it into it and build it up as you go along. Make sure you don’t miss any of the rivets or anything like that. And then you just work your way around this, and you want light pressure on it just to bond it in there. You change directions and that really bonds it onto it.
The roof and gutter silicone, it works well in Australian sun. So you get it nice and thick but still have it so the water can flow over it. Just got to make sure you can go over all the rivets and everything and really bond that joint. It’s a good day to do it because it’s not that hot, but it’s also quite dry. See how we get that swirling motion.
Hopefully that’ll be good for many years to come now and won’t give us any more grief with it leaking into the unit, especially when we start storing some equipment in there or shelving. That would be annoying. Smooth it out. You don’t want too much water catching it. You push down the corners like that so it can flow past and then that should be fine for a while.
Roof Fix
Back in the warehouse. We can see the silicone’s come out of the rivets and stuff, so that’s good. It’s been sealed up, so hopefully by next rainfall we should have a dry section here. We’ve got all our cement that we’ve bought, that’s all being stored here, so we don’t want that getting wet because that would absolutely stuff up when we’re doing the brick work and stuff. You can’t mix it. So anyway, time will tell. Wait for the next downpour.
