I wasn’t really sure whether I wanted a record of this happening but apparently hubby’s been telling everyone about it anyway so I might as well.
On Wednesday night, my husband decided we’d been without cable for long enough. For whatever reason, the satellite cable which is already laid in bedroom doesn’t seem to work. We attached another long cable to it so we could run it downstairs into the living room but we get nothing but a black screen and the indicators pick up a little something but a quality of 0 which still doesn’t help us.
Last weekend we picked up 50 meters of satellite cable and have been trying to figure out the best way to lay the cable without it showing all over the house. So we drilled a hole into the floor upstairs and the ceiling downstairs and tried to find the holes…needless to say that didn’t really work and we’ll instead need a very long drill bit but it was worth a try. That process was only complicated by the fact that the room upstairs is slightly larger than the living room, the walls are in slightly different places and so on. It’s an old house, after all. We’re lucky there is even a satellite dish up at all.
So on Wednesday night, Stefan decided he would climb up on the roof of the new kitchen and attempt to change the head on the satellite dish with a new one we bought. This sounds like a simple task but I must mention that the pitch on our roof is very steep, not to mention very high. He would still be on the peak of a two-story roof, with one side dropping even steeper than the one pictured (it almost looks tame in the picture) and another 5 or so feet further to the ground. We’re talking a high likelihood of breaking every bone in the body if not death. But we’re climbers so whatever – we should be able to handle it, right?
Or not lol. Oh, and did I mention it was dark outside? And that, although we climb, my husband is very afraid of heights?
The first attempts were using a ladder to climb a direct route from the edge of the roof to the peak where the dish is located. Unfortunately there is so much pitch to the roof that it was almost impossible to just walk over the roof to the dish and there’s nothing to hold on to or steady your grip. We even tried using our climbing shoes since they are designed to grip when their is truly nothing to grip. Climbing slab walls becomes a non-issue with them. But climbing roofing tiles – a big issue.
The next idea was to toss a rope out the window in the attic which could then be used to help him feel more secure while on the roof and prevent him from falling. In theory this was a decent idea. But this required that he climbs up the roof along the wall of the house, then across the peak to the dish. Once he got to the peak, panic was setting in so he sat with one leg on each side of the roof to steady himself. Next logical idea, scoot across the peak to the dish, change the head and come back. Unfortunately the dish is mounted almost directly on the peak and he realized about half way there that he had the new head but no tools to get the old one off. And how was he going to get past the dish and/or turn around while sitting on the peak??
At that point, this all became a fact finding mission. What did we find out? We should probably try this in the daylight next time, with the climbing harness on and with the Defender in the alley to use as an anchor to tie the rope to…and so we can move the rope to the middle of the roof where the dish actually is and not try walking the peak again. What we didn’t find out is what exactly we’ll need to get the old head off.
The trip coming back to the house went much quicker but then the next mission was how to get off the roof. Only two options were clear: 1) Go in through the window in the attic which was going to be quite a stretch if going feet first, and 2) climb back down the roof along the house wall and then use the ladder. In the end, he went for climbing through the window which entailed him eventually sort of launching himself headfirst through it and me trying to make sure he didn’t land on his head or get tangled up otherwise as he brought his legs through.
Not the smartest thing we’ve ever done and I can’t really believe that he’s going to try it again this weekend. Far braver than I am, I have to say…or maybe just stupider…
