Tag: stick

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.

Front License Plate Frame Installation Mustang Mach‑E: Drill & No-Drill

writ­ten 2/17/25, updat­ed 7/13/26

Overview

What

Installing a front license plate frame by both drill and no-drill meth­ods for 2024 Ford Mus­tang Mach‑E GT Ral­ly

Why

To com­ply with state reg­u­la­tions for dis­play of front tags

Time and Effort

Time: 5–20 min­utes

Effort: Easy

Materials & Cost

Supplies

No-Drill

  • 3M Dou­ble Sided Water­proof VHB Mount­ing Foam Tape, 1.18in x 16.5 ft
  • Scis­sors
  • 91% Iso­propyl Alco­hol Wipe
  • Adhe­sion Pro­mot­er
  • 180–320 grit Sand­pa­per
  • Painter’s Tape
  • License Plate Frame (OEM)
  • Plate Frame Hard­ware (OEM)

Drill

  • Plas­tic (Poly) Riv­et Gun
  • 1⁄4″ Drill Bit and Dri­ver
  • License Plate Frame (OEM)
  • Plate Frame Hard­ware (OEM)

Cost

  • $16.99 for 3M tape roll (Ama­zon)
  • $13.95 for 3‑pack Adhe­sion Pro­mot­er pack­ets (Ama­zon — $4.65 per pack­et)
  • $17.99 for Plas­tic Riv­et Gun set (Ama­zon or cheap­er from Har­bor Freight)
  • Free all oth­ers (owned, came with car)

Process: Drill

Pros: Secure, wor­ry-free, fast

Cons: Cre­ate holes in bumper (could affect col­lec­tor’s val­ue), can’t remove eas­i­ly

  • Find fac­to­ry dim­ples on the bumper
  • Using a 1⁄4″ drill bit, drill holes
  • The 3rd/bottom hole does not have a fac­to­ry guide dim­ple

Hint: Align and hold the frame to the car in line with the 2 dim­ples to use it as a tem­plate for the bot­tom hole dur­ing instal­la­tion

  • Find the plas­tic Pop Riv­ets that came with the frame. Push them through the frame and into the bumper
  • Slide the Riv­et Gun over the part stick­ing out, and squeeze. This will com­press the anchor back against the bumper. Release and squeeze again. You should hear a loud CLICK and the rod should come off (*See Notes for a look into how it works)

NOTE: You might have to squeeze a few times, mak­ing sure the gun is seat­ed all the way against the frame. If it fails (the rod breaks off, but the riv­et does not hold) push it out and try with the oth­er riv­et. In case this hap­pens, and you don’t have a spare, make sure to do the top 2 holes first because the frame will hold fine with just two attach­ments. See Notes sec­tion for more infor­ma­tion on the hard­ware

  • Slide the plate into the brack­et, secure with screws

DONE!

Process: No-Drill

Pros: Remov­able, no holes drilled into bumper, no mar after removal

Cons: Not 100% secure, chance of los­ing plate and frame

WARNING: My attempt at this failed after a month. At the time, it was installed in the cold win­ter weath­er, and I did not employ the use of an adhe­sion promoter/sandpaper. This is writ­ten with the revi­sions in place. Employ at your own risk!! *See NOTES sec­tion for my updates regard­ing success/failure

  • Make sure your license plate frame has enough sur­face con­tact areas to adhere it well to the car with 3M tape

This is the vehi­cle’s orig­i­nal plate frame

  • Go out to your car and dry-fit the frame accord­ing to the fac­to­ry dim­pling on the bumper
  • Using painter’s tape, mark out bor­ders to help with align­ing (Use strips that attach to both the frame and the car for eas­i­est align­ing)
  • Install license plate to frame (Can do this as the last step, if you pre­fer)

The OEM hard­ware will not scratch the car, stop­ping short of the end of the holes

  • With 180–320 grit Sand­pa­per, use cir­cu­lar motions to rough up the sur­faces where the tape will attach
  • Soak either a cot­ton pad or cot­ton ball with Rub­bing Alco­hol (high­er per­cent will dry faster) or use alco­hol wipes
  • Wipe down sur­faces with the alco­hol and wait for them to dry all the way
  • Open the Adhe­sion Pro­mot­er pack­et (I’d rec­om­mend gloves here) and wipe each con­tact point with a thin lay­er
  • Allow to dry (90–120 sec­onds)
  • Mea­sure out and cut the VHB 3M Tape to the size you need for your plate
  • Apply the sticky side to the plate, leav­ing the oth­er side of the tape (the one that will con­tact the car) still cov­ered

NOTE: 3M’s instruc­tion for this tape rec­om­mends heat­ing up with a hair dry­er if using in the win­ter. This tape is also move­able until com­pressed and mov­ing it should not affect adhe­sion prop­er­ties. Vis­cos­i­ty reach­es max­i­mum increase by 72 hours.

  • Rec­om­mend­ed: par­tial­ly remove the lin­ers in the house before going out­side. It can adhere tight­ly, so you may need to use tweez­ers if your fin­ger­nails aren’t able to get a good hold
  • Go out to your car
  • Dry fit the frame again, if you’d like
  • Use Rub­bing Alco­hol to wipe clean the install area of the car, mak­ing sure all for­eign debris is removed (oth­er­wise the tape will adhere to the debris instead of the car)
  • Wait until it it has evap­o­rat­ed
  • Peel off the lin­ers from the mount­ing tape
  • Align with the painter’s tape
  • Press
  • Keep press­ing with decent pres­sure for at least a minute (I did around 2–3 min­utes. It was eas­i­est with my feet while I messed around on a phone for a bit)
  • Remove the painter’s tape

Done!

Notes

  • Update 2/27/25 (10 days lat­er): Still hold­ing strong and no prob­lems! Been on the high­way, through work zones, lots of pot­holes, speed bumps, took turns too quick­ly, and plen­ty of stop and go traf­fic. So far, so good.
  • Update 3/25/25 (1 month): FAILURE!! Went to walk the dog and found the license plate frame on the ground! Good thing it was at home. I’ve decid­ed to leave the instruc­tions and post, up, though, because I still think it’s doable with some revi­sions. It’s impor­tant to note that all the 3M tape was still adhered well to the car. In fact, they were dif­fi­cult to remove. Removal left a clean, unmarred sur­face — exact­ly the point of adher­ing as opposed to pok­ing holes. This means that the fail­ure point was on the side of the brack­et, and not the tape or the car por­tion. I won­der if it was because the weath­er start­ed to change. I installed it in the cold win­ter, and it fell off when the days warmed up and overnight.
  • Update 3/30/25: Com­pro­mise. While I did not want to risk the plate falling off again (what if it hap­pens while on the road?) I still think that it’s pos­si­ble to adhere with 3M tape with­out drilling. So, what I did this time was use the drill method for the top two holes and applied the revi­sion process (adhe­sion pro­mot­er and sand­pa­per) for the low­er hole. That way, I have it secure AND I did­n’t drill into non-dim­pled bumper. I will mon­i­tor and con­tin­ue observ­ing the bond of the low­er por­tion of the frame at reg­u­lar inter­vals to see if it holds up
  • Update 8/24/25: With the phys­i­cal attach­ments, my brack­et has not fall­en off (of course). I went to try and tug on the bot­tom part of the frame where there is just the adhe­sion, and while it did­n’t move much, I can’t real­ly get a good read because of the hard­ware on the upper por­tion. At this point, I’m going to say that I do NOT rec­om­mend the No-Drill method, but you are wel­come to try! If you do, com­ment and let me know if it works for you!
  • Update 7/13/26: While the Drill Method still holds on well (nev­er thought it would­n’t), I still do not rec­om­mend the No-Drill Method. The tem­per­a­tures have gone up past 100F and down past 0F, there’s been crazy wind and down­pours, ice like con­crete, and I feel strong­ly that with­out the pop riv­ets, there’s only a minis­cule chance the tape will hold unless you hap­pen to live in an extreme­ly tem­per­ate area with min­i­mal swings.
  • If you look at the word­ing on the back of the plate frame, you see the let­ters “PP+EPDM.” These stand for PolyPropy­lene (PP), plas­tic, and eth­yl­ene-propy­lene-diene monomers (EPDM), a syn­thet­ic rub­ber. 

Hard­ware Infor­ma­tion

Con­tain­er License Plate Hard­ware

BB53-17A386-AA

Ford

1⁄4″ thick­ness in hole

1⁄4″ thick­ness screws

Plas­tic Pop Riv­et — How it Works

Start

Top View

Bot­tom View

For fun, I tried it with dou­ble thick­ness to see what would hap­pen. The first attempt failed, high­light­ing that if the ridged por­tion does not grab, then it will not stay in place and become loose. The sec­ond attempt suc­ceed­ed but was extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to squeeze.

You can see how there’s more of the ridged part on the sin­gle thick­ness before it cut off

Here’s the failed riv­et