Late yesterday afternoon, Mike from Creative Aluminum came by to do the final measurements for the new patio/walkway cover, that's going in front of the house. While here, I had him take a look at the 10 x 40 awning that covers the back deck. In just a few minutes, he confirmed my suspicions, that whoever put this thing up, didn't know what the hell they were doing.
It looks OK to the casual observer, but the first clue of problems came during a rainstorm. The entire 40 feet, where the awning attaches to the house, leaked like it was a mini waterfall. When I got up on the roof, I discovered that the flashing had not been secured under the drip rail, but instead, it was simply screwed to the facia board. I did a temporary repair, by caulking the top edge of the flashing, which stopped most of the water from making its way in between the roof edge, and the awning.
The scariest discovery was that the awning was not attached to the roof edge properly, and where the 5 support posts are attached to the deck, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Rather than being bolted to the deck, each support is attached by 2 small wood screws, that according to Mike, will not hold during a strong wind. Can your just imagine a 400 square foot aluminum sail, flapping in the wind, as it waves like a flag over the top of the house. Don't want to go there, so when Mike comes back to put up the front awning, he agreed to do all the things necessary to fix, and secure the back awning according to code. His schedule is pretty full, and with Thanksgiving next week, it's going to be about 3 weeks before Mike can get back here to do the new installation, and fix the existing awning.
Hopefully, there are no strong winds in the future weather forecast.
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