Roof pond

The traditional flat roofs of New Mexico were originally designed to collect water, and channel it out spouts called canales for collection in rain barrels. That makes total sense given the infrequency of rain and the scarcity of water in the desert. However, nowadays, we just mindlessly turn on the faucet.

Having roofs that were originally designed to be water collection systems, also has its downsides.

I was standing at the sink in the bathroom one afternoon, minding my own business, when all of a sudden a large volume of cold water dumped down my back! It had poured out of the ceiling fan! I can’t describe how disorienting it is to have a large amount of freezing cold water suddenly dumped down your back when standing alone in your bathroom! I did not understand what was happening. I think the neighbors heard my scream for blocks away.

After some observing, I decided it was dumping a cup or two of water every 5 or 10 minutes. Apparently (we figured out later), due to a quirk of the fan design, the water was collecting there until there was about a full cup’s worth, and then dumping all at once. By total crazy coincidence, I was standing there in the exact position to get the first cup’s worth dumped down my back.

Collecting roof water in the bathroom:

John was unavailable, so I climbed onto the roof myself. Don’t ever say there’s no lakes in New Mexico! Here’s a beautiful, reflecting pond right on my own property.

The entire roof was covered, although some areas were deeper than others.

I decided to sweep the water through the canales with a broom. It would have drained through the canales eventually on its own, but meanwhile, it was leaking into the house.

As I swept, the water poured out the canales in big waterfalls, but I couldn’t take a picture and sweep at the same time. So here’s pictures of when I paused, and the water is no longer pouring off, and is back to its natural state of slowly dripping.

You can see the big puddle on the ground below.

When I started, it was mostly about to my ankles.

Here’s the section where the bathroom vents are located, after I’ve gotten a lot of the water swept off.

We did some patching up there. We’ll see what happens when we get a big rainstorm again. Someday.