A small patch of damp drywall in the attic pointed straight to a major leak around the brick chimney stack up on the roof. Climbing up there with a cold chisel and a wire brush revealed that the old mortar joints were basically turning into sand. Fixing the leak meant grinding out all the loose, decaying concrete before applying fresh tuck pointing mortar, which is a mind numbing grind when you are balanced on a steep roof pitch.
The dust from the old mortar was absolutely brutal. Every single strike of the hammer sent a cloud of grey grit directly into my face, and even with a mask on, my throat felt like sandpaper within an hour. My knuckles are completely raw from accidentally scraping them against the rough brickwork every time the chisel slipped. Trying to mix a heavy bucket of fresh mortar while perched on a ladder, keeping it from drying out in the wind, and shoving it into tiny half inch gaps with a pointing trowel took way too much coordination.
The worst part was installing the new metal flashing around the base to actually stop the rain. Bending thick sheets of aluminum around a brick corner using basic hand snips requires a ridiculous amount of hand strength, and the sharp edges sliced right through my first pair of work gloves. Getting a water tight seal meant applying thick layers of sticky black roofing tar, which somehow ended up smeared all over my jeans, my boots, and the handles of my favorite tools.
It took nearly six hours of constant kneeling on hard shingles just to finish a three foot section of the brickwork. My knees are swollen, my neck is completely stiff from staring downward all afternoon, and the black tar stains on my hands will probably take a week to scrub off. There is a massive rainstorm forecast for tomorrow night, so the patch job is going to face a real test whether I like it or not.