In Shaw (an historically gentrified blog)

In praise of duct tape

Oh how I love you duct tape, or as I think of you, duck tape.

Duck tape, makes up for lack of talent and skill. Sometimes it makes up for laziness as well and I find it to be an important part of my tool box. It works well were semi-function is valued over good looks. As my regular readers know, my house is old (120-130 years) and has a lot of problems. There are things I have the skill to deal with and a whole mess that I don't have any skill or talent or know how what so ever.
There are two projects where I had to use the tape.
The first was the gutter pipe. When I got the house my gutter was this galvinized something pipe that went the length of my patio splitting the back into two. In the winter I got a rain barrel and cut the pipe along the house so I could divert water into the barrel. The range of attachments did not fit well with the existing gutter pipe, so I had to do some cutting and fooling around with to get it to "sort of fit". The next problem was surviving the rain. The plumber's tape, which was tape with plumber's putty as the sticky stuff, could resist the water but could not deal with the weight of the water in the bend. Duck tape to the rescue. I still used the plumber's tape for the parts close to where the water ran but lotsa duct tape to keep the attachments together. So far so good. It hasn't fallen apart in months.
The other was an indoor project where I lacked skill and the ability to measure correctly. My door does not sit at a 90 degree angle. Actually very little of this house has a 90 degree angle and hasn't seen a pure 90 degree angle since 1880. So to attempt to keep the bugs and cold out I attached a weatherstrip thingy for the bottom of the door. At first I tried sticky ones but they would get unstuck. Then I tried screwing them in. The problem I encountered there was the steel door coating. That was such a pain to drill a hole into. I lost skin and blood trying to get holes and screws into that door. That did help, but the way the door was angled, I still had a bit exposed and open. So white duct tape to make up for the small gap I never measured correctly. Yes, it looks ghetto, but it works.

posted by Mari @ 19.7.05