Roofing the Little Home-2

Run out your firring strips with nails or screws, and then pull a tape and double check that they are straight and write down the locations.  If the bottom firring strip is 2" (on center) from the bottom, and 2' on center, then you'll end up with centers of 2", 26", 50", 74", etc.  Draw that out on a piece of wood (carpenters always use wood, not paper) and through it into your tool pouch, or on the ground in a place you can find it. 

Pull that metal roofing onto your sawhorses and flush up the ends.  Measure and mark the top sheet at 3 1/2", 2' 3 1/2", etc.  Despite the roof edge, we want to run the roofing below it, for a little added protection.  Pre-drill the holes for the screws.  If you get it wrong, this will be a spot for the rain to come inside.  If you don't pre-drill, you're going to be battling gravity and metal to get it in place.

Have your helper hand you up the roof edge and metal cutters.  You just changed professions.  You want to run roof edge around the entire perimeter of the roof.  This key component is going to save your carpentry from the water than runs down your roof, and would otherwise splash up and rot your fascia board.   You don't need a lot of fasteners for the roof edge; 3 per piece is enough.  After you have the roof edge down, you're ready to run roofing.  The first piece is key to the whole thing.  Put it down crooked and you'll be fighting it the whole way.  Pull out a chalk line at 37" from the end.  Make sure that is squared to the ridge   (A basic way to check square is to mark 3' on one side of a square angle, 4' on the other side, and the intersection of the diagonal will be 5'.  For greater precision on bigger squares, double the measurements or triple them: 6, 8, 10 or 9, 12, 15.)  You want a gap at the ridge.  You're going to put down a ridge cap, and you want the air in your attic to vent out here.  If you have a 6" ridge vent, you'll have a maximum of 3" to play with gap at the top.  Make sure you know how much play you have, and enough overlap to prevent wind blowing the water uphill and into the gap.  There are also foam strips specifically designed to seal this up, without blocking the air flow.  That will keep leaves, bugs, critters and water out, while allowing hot or cold air out.

Pull up, and screw down each piece of metal roofing, keeping the edges flush and the edges sealed.  If you didn't get that first piece precise, you may have to adjust to get the roof back on track.  It will look ugly quick, and the holes won't line up with the firring strips.  There's a real good chance you'll end up with a hole somewhere you didn't want.  You'll want to caulk that in, which will last years, but not lifetimes.

Now, we built a 16 foot structure and then added 2 foot overhangs, so our roofing is going to be 1 foot shorter than the materials which come in 3' sections.  There are different styles, types, and thicknesses of metal roofing, but I would recommend 5R in 29 gauge, which comes in a variety of colors.  The downside is that it'll fade quicker and is less rigid.  The upside is that it is easier to cut and more cost efficient.  With 5R we can pull the last row back 9" have that much more overlap.  This would still leave 4" flapping in the breeze and provide an excellent place for the wind to catch it and pry it off our roof.  Had we planned it better, we could have made the overhang 30" and used the entire piece, or 26" and again used the whole piece with the 9" overlap, or, we can make that most hand numbing cut, along the length of the piece.

One of the benefits of 5R is that there are pieces of translucent or clear roofing available.  It's expensive and comes only in 8' or 12' lengths, but If you buy one 12' piece and cut it in half, you have two great skylights, which will offset the cost of heat loss with a savings in electrical lighting.  We'll cover that skylight later, to include ways to reduce the heat loss.  With the roofing being the skylight, the risks of leaks is greatly reduced.

And when buying  Metal roofing, don't go to Lowe's or Home Depot.  Go to a dealer that specializes in it.  It costs less, and they will cut it to within an inch of your preferred lengths, which will save you a lot of time, and handache.  Additionally, they know what you need to get the job done right.

To finish out the roofing, you'll run both sides, and then the ridge cap/vent.   This will have us "dried in," so we'll be able to breath easier knowing the plywood won't be getting wet when it rains.  The roof isn't really finished until we run all those holes through it, which is one reason why plumbers and carpenters hate each other.   When we run those vents, we're going to have to take off at least one piece of roofing, cut it along the width, cut a hole in the upper piece, slide a rubber "boot" over the pipe (which means the stove pipe has to be double walled to prevent melting) and then put the pieces back in place, with an overlap of the upper piece on top of the lower piece. (Water runs downhill.)

Foundation and Floor:  Start and finish there
Walls and Ceilings
Framing the Roof
Roofing the Little Home (this one)

Comments

[Tara Tompson]

I need to get my roof patched up. I don't know what happened to it over the past few months, but there are broken tiles everywhere. I think it might be easier to just get the whole roof redone. I should get something more durable this time. http://www.acrroofingcorp.com/roofing/

[Doloresbrown]

I think maintaining is really important to the house. A lot of damage can happen if you don't keep your roof nice and repaired. Water damage is probably the worst. It works pretty fast and does a lot of damage. http://www.rippysroofing.com/