smith.nancy•1mo agoProlific Poster

Shoutout to my neighbor for duct taping a broken porch step for 4 years

He used the same roll of gray duct tape to patch a cracked wooden step on his front porch in Des Moines, never replaced it. When I asked why he didn't just buy a new board, he said 'why fix what ain't broke when tape works cheaper'. Has anyone else met someone who took duct tape repairs way too far?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_hayden1mo ago

Oh man, I bet that tape has like 7 layers of weather damage and paint now, basically structural at this point. That neighbor is living in 3024 while we're all still back here replacing things like chumps. I respect the commitment though, that's a solid 4 year run for a fix that probably cost like $0.50. At this point the tape is probably holding up the whole porch, take it off and the house collapses.

annajenkins1mo ago

Is anyone else wondering if that gray tape has actually become a load-bearing element now? Like @the_hayden said, take it off and the whole porch might just give out. Honestly, I think the real genius here is that he's accidentally engineered a cheap seismic dampener. The tape flexes in the weather, the wood underneath stays protected, it's basically a poor man's expansion joint. Ngl, that neighbor might be onto something bigger than just a porch fix.

sage_moore371mo ago

That "poor man's expansion joint" line got me thinking. I actually tried this on my own porch step after a bad winter cracked it. Here's what I learned after two years of taping. The key is overlapping the tape in a shingle pattern so water runs off instead of pooling under it. If you let moisture get trapped underneath, the wood rots way faster than if you just left it exposed. The other thing is make sure to wrap the tape under the step edge so it can't peel up from wind or snow. I had to redo mine once when I got lazy and didn't do that, the whole thing flapped loose in a storm. Honestly, if you keep it dry and tight, that tape can last way longer than people expect.