Roof & Lightning Rod Repair

I finally made it up on the roof to repair a little leak that has been there for awhile now. Earlier in the spring a shingle had blown off and there was a couple exposed nail holes. After I replaced the shingle and tarred up the holes, I decided it was a good time to repair one of the 6 lightning rods that was broken. All the pieces were there, it was just crooked because the copper rod was cracked and someone had repaired it with duct tape at some point.

Here's a view towards the back of the house, you can see the farthest lightning rod is missing the top and the blue ball. I took the parts off so I could repair it.


Not the best fix ever, but this will have to do for the time being. I took a wooden dowel rod that fit snugly inside the copper rod, then I put a few wraps of electrical tape for good measure. This picture was taken from the "widows watch" on the rooftop - looking towards the front of the house. On the right edge of the picture the hatch is visible that leads to a ladder down into the attic. From the attic there is a staircase that goes down to the 2nd floor.


Another picture towards the front of the house. You can see the copper lightning rods have a heavy green patina from the weather. The globes are blue glass.


As I was finishing up the roof, my parents arrived for dinner and brought along 20 raspberry plants, 2 rubarb plants and a lilac bush. After dinner we planted them all and by the time I finished it was pretty dark out.