Tag: quick

How to View House Roof Without Climbing onto It

writ­ten 5/19/25, updat­ed 5/19/25

What

View­ing roof with­out climb­ing on it

Why

Too tall, unsafe

Effort and Time

Easy & Quick

Some­times you want to view your roof. You don’t want to pay a pro­fes­sion­al to come do it you don’t have to, but you also want to know if there’s dam­age that needs to be addressed. Say, you live in house with more than one-sto­ry and you real­ly don’t have a lad­der nor want to climb that high, or you sim­ply don’t feel com­fort­able on one (espe­cial­ly by your­self! I knew a capa­ble, sin­gle man whose lad­der kicked out and he land­ed on his feet 2 sto­ries down which frac­tured both ankles and his back. True sto­ry). Here are some options avail­able to you with­out cost­ing an arm and a leg or a back mon­e­tar­i­ly and phys­i­cal­ly (hope­ful­ly).

Methods

Dis­claimer: There are many dif­fer­ent types of sit­u­a­tions and house con­fig­u­ra­tions out there. Also, I am NOT a pro­fes­sion­al, just a DIY­er in a town­house.

Camera on Stick — Easiest, Cheapest Method

Pros: Easy, Fast, Safe

Cons: May have to buy items if you don’t already have them, lim­it­ed by length and curves

Mate­ri­als: Livestream­ing Cam­era, Pole (broom, gar­den, PVC pipe, any­thing sol­id and strong), Duct Tape, Phone/Viewing Screen

Cost: You can get a decent cam­era (beware unrep­utable brands and apps in case they release mal­ware into your home inter­net sys­tem) for less than $15, Dol­lar Tree sells broom han­dles and tape for $1.25 each. Assum­ing you own a smart­phone and noth­ing else, you can do this for under $20.

Instruc­tions:

  • Most hous­es these days have wi-fi con­nect­ed secu­ri­ty cam­eras that can livestream, a broom or some oth­er strong pole(s), and tape
  • Decide on the best place to view your roof from (e.g. upstairs win­dow)
  • Duct tape your cam­era to the tip of the pole, mak­ing sure it’s secure
  • If you need height, duct tape togeth­er a few of them mak­ing sure the pole over­lap is enough to stay strong when you extend it
  • Open the cam­era app and start livestream­ing the cam­era
  • If you want to and have the func­tion, hit the “Record” but­ton
  • Extend your cam­era-on-a-stick towards the roof with a firm grip, and inspect it
  • Watch video on phone lat­er

DONE. Easy Peasy.

Drone

Pros: Easy, Good View, Maneu­ver­able

Cons: Expen­sive unless you already own one or want a nice one, Crash/loss Poten­tial, Beware drone fly­ing laws

Because the stu­pid app is stu­pid, I tried to tape a cam­era to the drone which oth­er­wise flies decent­ly for some­thing under $50

Mate­ri­als: Drone, Phone

Cost: At least $200 for a decent drone (any less and it’s worth­less and pos­si­ble secu­ri­ty risk), $15 sub­scrip­tion fee for app

Would be fine if you already have a good qual­i­ty drone or want one to begin with, but I was­n’t pay­ing $200–400 for a drone just to look at the roof. Instead, I spent 2 week­ends try­ing this fan­cy method with 2 cheap drones ($130 togeth­er) before I real­ized I wast­ed good mon­ey. This is use­ful and easy only if you already have a decent qual­i­ty drone and/or live in a one-sto­ry house. My first drone could fly decent­ly, but the app (3rd par­ty sep­a­rate from the drone sell­er) not only failed to load, but tried to hack into the inter­net sys­tem of my house both times I tried to unsuc­cess­ful­ly launch it. So, I got a sec­ond drone with its own view­ing screen and no need to con­nect an app, but the drone itself was utter garbage and was impos­si­ble to fly. Absolute waste of mon­ey. Deter­mined to make it work, I paid for the small­est cam­era ($42.99) I could find (after hours of scan­ning the inter­net) that did­n’t need phone con­nec­tion to work, just an SD card. I taped it to my first drone and tried to fly that up to the roof. Ter­ri­fied that it would fly off on its own (I’m not very good at fly­ing drones, so I crash often), I tied a string to it, but it did­n’t mat­ter in the end because the range between the con­troller and drone was about 1 sto­ry tops. Total FAILURE and an utter waste of mon­ey ($172.97. OUCH)! The only good things that came about this is that, 1) Now I know I don’t real­ly care to fly drones any­more, and 2) It’s a fun gad­get to antag­o­nize the dog with.

Instruc­tion: Very sim­ple

  • Con­nect drone to phone
  • Fly up
  • View roof
  • Don’t Crash
  • Review footage

Com­plete!

Others

Sim­i­lar to the drone, you could try a Rock Crawler RC Car with a cam­era either built-in or taped to it. It’s eas­i­er to con­trol than a drone, espe­cial­ly the slow­er speed of the Rock Crawlers, though beware the tilt of the roof, if you can lift it onto the roof with a grab­ber arm or some­thing. Just don’t dri­ve off the edge! I’d tie a string or fish­ing line around it in case it does (just don’t get it tan­gled in the wheels).

An Endo­scope could be use­ful? You could shove it along the roof? It’s flex­i­ble enough to snake around things, though the small field of view might not be so great.

Pet Rat with Cam­era and Leash… Maybe not. A hawk might get it.

You could hire some­one to per­ma­nent­ly mount a Solar Pow­ered Cam­era some­where up there, like the chim­ney. That way you can view it at any time. Weath­er could be a prob­lem, as well as retriev­ing it if you need­ed to.

Chizza — Chicken Crust Pizza

writ­ten 08/25/2023, updat­ed 08/25/2023

What

Bread­ed chick­en breast, fried, then topped with cheese and oth­er top­ping, then baked to melt. No egg, no but­ter­milk.

Meat injec­tor for speed or mar­i­nate overnight.

Also good for chick­en fried chick­en type of recipes that use sauces, or fried chick­en sand­wich­es. Alter­na­tive­ly, eat it plain.

Ingredients

*Mea­sure­ments are all to your taste

Main: Chick­en Breast, Peanut Oil

Mari­nade: Salt, Pep­per, Gar­lic Pow­der, Chick­en Broth

Bread­ing: All-Pur­pose Flour, corn­starch, Sea­son-All

Top­ping: Mozzerel­la Cheese, etc

Option­al: hot pep­per, onion, pick­le juice, mus­tard, etc. What­ev­er you want.

Sup­plies: Plas­tic zip­per bag or mix­ing bowl if mar­i­nat­ing overnight, bowl for mix­ing of mari­nade, meat mal­let, plas­tic wrap, meat injec­tor (option­al), meat ther­mome­ter, oil ther­mome­ter

Time

20 min­utes Prep + 10 min­utes (meat injec­tor) or overnight set (mar­i­nate) + 30 minute cook = 1 hour (plus overnight if mar­i­nat­ing)

Steps

Prep

  • Pre­pare the mari­nade or injec­tor fill­ing - In a bowl com­bine to your desired taste: chick­en broth salt, pep­per, gar­lic pow­der (sub­sti­tute what­ev­er you’d like, such as pick­le juice)
  • Taste, when to your lik­ing, set aside, or if using meat injec­tor, pull it up into the injec­tor
  • Pre­pare the meat
  • Decide how big a chiz­za you want
  • Cut chick­en breast and flat­ten using mal­let and plas­tic wrap until no small­er than 0.5 in or slight­ly larg­er than the width of the injec­tor if using. Oth­er­wise, into thick­ness of your desire
  • If you want a larg­er chiz­za, then you can but­ter­fly and then flat­ten
  • If using injec­tor, start inject­ing the chick­en with the mari­nade, try­ing not to miss any areas, then let sit for about 10ish min­utes while you prep the fry­er
  • If mar­i­nat­ing overnight, then put in plas­tic zip­per bag or bowl, pour mari­nade in, mix, and set aside in refrig­er­a­tor

Cooking

  • If mar­i­nat­ing overnight, take chick­en out and let come to room tem­per­a­ture
  • Set up the fry­er, using a ther­mome­ter to mon­i­tor oil
  • In a bowl, put equal parts all-pur­pose flour and corn­starch
  • Sea­son it and mix (I like to use Sea­son-All, but you can use any mix of papri­ka, onion, gar­lic, salt, pep­per, hot pep­per, herbs etc)
  • Spread some on the bot­tom of a dish
  • Place chick­en breast in a dish
  • Use remain­ing bread­ing to sprin­kle over­top the pieces, until both sides are coat­ed
  • Care­ful­ly place into fry­er (may have to do one at a time) when oil reach­es around 350F (175C)
  • Mon­i­tor and flip (around 5 min­utes a side, depend­ing on thick­ness and size)
  • Tem­per­a­ture check the meat. It’s done when it’s 165F
  • Remove and place on a tow­el lined dish to set for a few min­utes
  • Pre­heat the toast­er oven to 350F Bake (or use broil or piz­za set­ting)
  • While wait­ing, place moz­zarel­la cheese and oth­er top­pings on the chick­en
  • Bake for about 5 min­utes or until cheese is melt­ed to your lik­ing
  • Remove

ENJOY

Bread­ed and ready for fry­ing
Close­up