[heero_yuy]

Water butt that gathers rain from the utility room lean to roof had cracked at the base and was leaking. Probably the result of getting frozen solid in the winter.

I drilled a hole at each end of the crack. Standard proceedure to stop further propogation of a crack. Gouged out the crack with a small burr on my hobby drill. Roughened up the surface with some 60 grit sandpaper and then filled the crack and holes with some P38 car body filler.

Then mixed up a generous helping of P40, that's the one with glass fibres in it, and covered the whole area to at least 3" beyound the damage.

Set nice and quick in the hot sun so hopefully it's fixed for now, ready to get filled up by storm "Hector" tomorrow.

They're not that expensive but a fix with stuff from the cupboard is better and I don't add a plastic butt to the trash overload.

At the same time I got out the stepladder and pushed some of the slates back into place on the roof. Nail fatigue. Rollered on some strips of bituminous flashing to stop them slipping out again. Only needs to hold for a year or two as the whole thing will be demolished soon to make way for a big conservatory that will double up as the utility room at one end.