Got a call at work from my wife telling me we had some water dripping down down one of our walls. Boss lady lets me head home to evaluate problem. Walked out the hospital doors into a two-block visibility snow storm. Arrive at home, and yes, there is a small drip coming from where a vent pipe is housed. A suspicion starts to form. Said vent is on top of the flat roof of our addition. Memory serving, vent is about eight inches high, give or take. Time to squeeze ample butt through a second story window and evaluate this in person. Hmm, window seems to have shrunk since the last time I was through it last summer. Where's the vent? Oh wait, I think I see part of the top of it. Yep, that's it. Ok, start digging with snow shove I've brought with. Oops, plastic shovel is bouncing of the hard packed snow. OK, I'll try further out. Repeat previous two sentences about five times until I'm at edge of roof, where I'm able to get some leverage. Under the foot of alternating layers of heavy wet snow and compacted sleet, is a nice layer of ice at least an inch thick left from last week's major storm. Shovel snow off roof over to buried vent. Begin wondering, how much weight is actually on the roof right now? Decide I'd rather not think about that. Clear away snow covering most of the vent. Now I need to get the ice up, since I can see water moving around under it when I'm walking. Go back to edge of roof and begin carefully breaking up ice without damaging rubber roofing surface. Break shovel #1. Crawl through window, go get shovel #2, go back through window doing graceful Parachute Landing Fall on snow on roof. Clear away ice, check roof, looks okay. Decide to remove more snow and ice from roof to diminish weight. Get half of the snow off, break shovel blade #2, and try to commit suicide by slicing wrist on broken plastic handle at same time. Decide it may be time to see how the leak inside is doing at this point. Go through window, decide to rest in bathtub under window for few minutes since I'm laying in it flat on my back anyway. Get up, stagger downstairs. Behold!! Leak has stopped. Reward self with extended sit on couch and computer time. Decide not to go outside anymore today unless life depends on it.
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Back in the early '60s, trying to make money for college, I parked cars at a small [excellent!] Italian restaurant in NJ [where else?]. Winter storm packed up ice and snow over the kitchen, just like on your roof. I went out a 2nd story window down [much easier] onto the kitchen roof. Pushed a foot or more of snow off the roof, then realized I was about a foot off the edge of the roof! The heat from the kitchen kept melting the snow, then the water would run out to the side of the roof and freeze. My butt was hanging out over a parking lot! Much haste back in the window. I used the floor, as no bathtub was handy. OldeForce
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