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Up on the Roof, Down goes the old

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Our 2nd floor tenants here mentioned the ceiling in the kitchen was showing some water damage again after the last big snowstorm. I figured I had already patched that area above the kitchen with lots of tar last year, but apparently to no avail. I've know since I bought the building that the roof needed to be completely replaced, since much of it was rippled and many of the joints with the parapet walls were tearing.  I made the mistake of hiring some fly by night contractors to put a layer of paint-able rubber membrane on over 5 years ago, and I thought that would hold it for awhile, but the membrane already had started coming off in the same year.  At that same time, I did get some estimates for a 'modified bitumen roof' for about $10K.  Once of the estimators took a sample of my existing roof, and said there were 7 layers of roof, and what looked to be the original gravel roof! So, obviously, this roof needed to be completely torn off. I contacted a numbe...
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Chevy HHR water leak passenger floor, HVAC fan dead

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After watching a number of youtube videos, I discovered there's a commonly worn out cover under the windshield cowl.  The rubber piece covering this hole (called the fan access) was completely damaged and sunk into the hole.  Water was just pouring in from windshield, then under the hood, then into this hole right into the passenger side behind the glove box. access hole under windshield cowl replacement cover with silicone seal installed cover, hopefully no more leaks here A terrible side effect of having water pour into the access hole is damaged HVAC fan and its resistor.  The 'resistor' enables the fan to have different speeds.  So, it looked like in the end, the water started leaking in, damaging the resistor and the fan would only run on high setting (no resistor).  Then after time, more water would cause the DC motor to fail (rusted brushes, bearings, etc.).  The last symptom was a soaking wet passenger floor carpet. ...
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Nip and tuck

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Once spring finally arrived in Chicago, it became clear the front parapet wall needed to be repaired before a city inspector looked up. BEFORE I already had a quote in hand from Stan Guzik for rebuilding the top part of the wall, full tuckpointing, and brick cleaning.  I hoped to have Marion Restoration out for an updated quote, but no call back from them.  I was very concerned how the brick itself would be treated throughout the process, since they don't make the same face brick anymore, and the joints are not your modern 1/4" joint, they are 'butter joints' which are about 1/8" thick.  The typical electric grinder used to remove the old mortar would surely destroy the brick.  I didn't get any verbal assurances from Stan that the brick would be untouched before the job, and i didn't press for any answers, either (more later). *falling* stone facade (on misty morning), you can also see open mortar joints below and around window sill, and the...
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