I once spent all of a freezing Saturday in the loft of an
old cottage, clearing 2ft snowdrifts to avert the damage they might have done
when they melted. The reason for the snowy intrusion was that much of the
torching had fallen off over the century of the house's existence, and the previous day’s
blizzard had driven an awful lot of the white stuff through the gaps.
(Torching, by the way, is the plaster-like concoction which they used to seal
the gaps behind the tiles in the days before roofing felt.)
When I moved into this house in 2006, I persuaded the
landlord to have the torching renewed so that I wouldn’t have the same problem
again. They did a good job, but apparently not good enough. Since we’re being
treated to a bit of a blizzard today, I thought I’d go and check. Most of the
torching is good, but there were still four or five piles of snow that had come
through gaps, one of which wasn’t small enough for comfort. I thought I’d
better get a shovel and a big plastic bag and remove it.
The loft here is difficult to get into through the tiny
entrance in the bathroom ceiling. And it’s too small to move around in
comfortably. You have to crawl, feeling all the time for the joists which are
hidden by lagging laid at right angles. And then you have to stretch and twist
to get at the snow. And lofts are always cold, dark, dirty places at the best
of times. Mercifully, it was a much smaller job than the last one.
Did I mention that I don’t like winter?
No comments:
Post a Comment