play clay

There is a child in all of us, and no matter how old we get we love to revel in the inner child realm every now and again. I had to find a way to figure out where my windows were leaking from. Did I have a gap somewhere? Did the seals fall short? In dentistry we have special spray powder you can put inside a crown and it will show you your high points and low points. Something on this scale requires something a little bigger. I needed to flow a material in and around the window frame so I could see where it was touching the frame and where there was a space. From the outside it looks great, but obviously that's not the case.

I needed to take an impression!

In the dental medical world we use this stuff all the time to show us the details of small things and unseen surfaces!





But using dental impression material is a pretty costly venture on the scale we are talking about, plus the fact that all of that is at my office and I want to do it now!

In comes the inner child! Crayola modelling clay!

My brother once used this stuff to create a very clever sculpture for my work shop. Digging through our craft cupboard we were able to find a package....as the great Shrek once said, "That'll do donkey, that'll do!"

So I got to play with it and form little rolls, which I placed over the seals and flattened them slightly.

I then installed the windows, allowing the material out or into the voids behind the frame. what I saw in the end was disheartening. The seals were doing little if anything.Now I will journey to find new seals....and fast.

All the while, I must find out where the roof leak is coming from. And I think I have found the culprit.There are two roof vents that draw air in from outside. The path of the air after it enters into this "hood" is up and down as it goes over and under little barriers along the way. As it does this water (if any) is physically removed as it passes over these barriers, and then drains away out the side drain holes. For this to work the unit has to be sealed. I noticed two things. The body shop did not use a seam sealer but rather a foam (so the rivets are not sealed) and second, the foam is blocking the drain holes!!

Lets hope this is it!