2005-01-29: I have a porch roof again.

At any rate, Brian tied the ladder to the roof of the Pathfinder while I picked up the edger Mom got me a while back and a power drill - then we set out for SD again. I gave Craig a call upon return, and started working on the screw/nail things sticking out of the awning. You can see them in max zoom on this image, sticking out of the back end of the part of the roof that's folded up on the roof.

Next, Craig and I went up on the roof to figure out how we were going to get the awning down. I had Brian pass the camera up to me, so that I could take a panorama type shot. It's not that I think the mobile home park is a great and magnificent sight, it's just that I don't want to go up on the roof any more than I have to. Of course, there are some things which must be seen to be believed. For one thing, check out the bricks in this picture. If you don't spot them right away, look towards the bottom, a bit left of center. The best guess I've got about this, is that either those bricks were there to block leaks in the California room (which, for the record, was grossly ineffective), or they're the cause behind the leaks. Either way, I'm hoping to find out the source of the california room leaks next weekend and then patch them with some of that nifty stuff made expressly for that purpose.

At any rate, Craig had the idea of tying a rope to two points on the roof, and easing it down rather than letting it crash unceremoniously down, probably destroying itself in the process. Or at the very least, tearing free from its supports. Brian and Craig had also put some of the old fence posts from the fence that was blown down in the wind and putting them on the porch, to catch it in case the flimsy metal posts failed to support it. My long-term plans involve using the concrete footings from those posts, along with longer posts, to anchor that thing firmly to the ground. If the wind can pick up THOSE posts, I will be impressed.

So, the actual procedure of lowering the awning was done with Craig pushing the roof over from the west side, and me in the middle, holding both sides of the rope and slowly lowering the roof. If that looks trivial, recall the principles of lever action - even with that lightweight roof, I was having to lean back to keep from being pulled over the edge, and going any faster than I was going on lowering it would've resulted in some nasty rope burn. That having been said, it got the job done well, and if I were re-doing it, the only thing I'd change would be to wear a pair of gloves.

The awning supports didn't escape their ordeal completely unscathed. You can see how the tops of both the west support and east support have lost half of their connection to the awning. Also, next to the east support is the spout for the rain gutter. I'll get that reinstalled when I'm redoing the supporting structure.

That concludes the story of restoring the trailer's porch. A piece of trim did indeed fall off while the awning was being lowered, so I'll need to go back up there later on and put it back up, as well as re-seat its counterpart on the other side of the trailer. Overall though, it was a great success. Now I just need to get around to re-doing the porch itself. I don't think the previous owner bothered using weather-treated plywood, and additionally, one of the supports doesn't actually touch the ground.