The Roof Saga, part 7

The temperature was headed toward 100 degrees when Dan headed up to the roof after church on Sunday (July 8th). We didn't spend too much time up their BUT we got twice as much done because Dan had some help from our good friend Scott.

If you will notice the area of the roof in the upper right side of this picture you can see where Dan stopped yesterday. There was still a couple hundred square feet of rolled roofing and shingles (four layers deep) to remove.

With Scott's help it went twice as fast!

After about two hours it looked like this. WooHoo!! Thank you Scott!

It was really too hot to keep going so they called it a "Roofing Day" (A "Roofing Day" is kind of like dog years... one hour working in 100 degrees on a roof is like five regular work hours. So, they effectively put in a full day's work.)

We'll be back soon!

The Roof Saga, part 6

And the work continues...

This is where we left things on the 4th of July.
Dan got to work removing more roofing material and plywood.

He figured out that if he made small cuts on either side of the seams of the top layer of rolled roofing he could pull them up like a zipper. This made it much easier to pull up the top couple of layers of roofing material. Things were moving along fairly well... but every time we think that we have seen all there is to see in the realm of aberrant building practices...we find something else.

Pop Quiz: You've added a heavy swamp cooler to your roof but you didn't take the time to build a proper structure to support it. Then it comes time for you to add your 8th layer of roofing and you notice that the roof is beginning to sag. Realizing that you don't have a level surface to lay your new roofing on, what do you do?

Answer: You add some loose gravel of course!

Yep. Loose gravel. Another "there, I fixed it!" moment, to be sure.


Although we have seen many unique approaches and products used to fix things around here, have you noticed that one of the classics has been missing from the list? What is the go-to secret weapon of all self-respecting Red Green fans everywhere?

That's right, Duct tape!
How do you keep water from running down your vent pipes into your attic?

Why, a few wraps of duct tape and some good ol' Henry's roofing patch.

After several hours of scraping off old roofing, gravel and duct tape, Dan sat down under his shade and looked around...

WOW!!! It looks like a bomb went off!

It's always gonna look worse before it looks better. He kept at it for a little longer...

By the end of 7.5 hours of work it looked like this.
Progress is progress.

And if it isn't obvious by now...there will be more to come.

The Roof Saga, part 5

On the Fourth of July most people like to go to the park, hang out by a lake, have a bar-b-que... maybe watch some fireworks... but Dan thought that he would rather work on the roof.

At least he decided to borrow Bob's pop-up shade. 

Wow! That really made a great difference. Thanks Bob!

Nothing too remarkable to show for this day's work. But here is a picture that shows the difference between the main (original 1948) roof and the master bed/bath add-on. We wonder why they didn't build them level with each other... but then we laugh at such silly questions.

Here is what things looked like after a few hours work. More plywood exposed. More roofing and plywood removed. It's a holiday so Dan only worked for a couple of hours.

He did, however, do one more task.

Here is a picture of roof over the potting shed area. It's built using 2x4's and fiberglass panels.

He is going to need to remove these panels to work on the lower roof eve so he took them out. 

We really like it opened up like this. (That's the kitchen window you see.)

By the way, Dan told me he used a section of 2x4 like a battering ram and knocked the roof off. HA! Take that!!!

We'll be back again soon!

The Roof Saga, part 4

Well, the tear off continues...

You may remember from last time that we uncovered this original lower roof over the guest bath area. If you notice in the photo above, the roof over the cover patio was tied into the structure that we removed a couple of posts back. We needed to support that roof area so that we could continue our work here.

So, Dan added four 10 foot 2'x4's for support. The roof is also attached to the studio area and some other posts (already in the structure of the house). Although it will not withstand a hurricane it should be good for now.

Dan continued with the tear off on that lower roof.

Removing the boards damaged by previous termites...

and water damage. In a lot of ways water damage can be more extensive than termites.

Possibly because some people don't take it as a serious threat.

He then went on to remove more of the many layers of roofing from the main roof section and found even more wonders...

Although it's kind of hard to make out in these photos. The previous "roofer," in an apparent attempt at strengthening a water damaged (dry rot infested) area of the roof, covered the section with a combination of peg board and metal sheeting. These were screwed together and to the surrounding area to "fix it." As in... "Look! There I fixed it! It's good as new!"

Here is what was under that nifty peg board bandage.

After clearing some more of the roofing you can see the extent of the damage.

So, after a another day's work this is where we stand. Note that the wood showing on the upper right of the picture is the plywood that is still covering up another 4 layers of roofing material.

Another wonderful episode following soon!

The Roof Saga, part 3

Well, the next step to our re-roof project was to begin tear-off.

Dan began at the section of roof that he unearthed in our last post. This is a section that is just above our Master bathroom. It was becoming evident rather quickly that again there were going to be more surprises.

This eye bolt was literally covered in layers of "Henry's" roofing cement and completely invisible until Dan dug through the layers. But not only did they decide to bury eye bolts ...

They buried the roof under more roof! 

If you look at this picture very carefully you will see a veritable stratification of roofing. As one of our friends said, "It's like an archeological dig!" How many layers can you count?

Dan thinks that the first layer of tar paper and the silvery stuff with gravel in it was probably the original roof from 1948. 

(Note: it is bad practice to have more than three layers of material on a roof.)

Judging from the technique used by the previous roofer a roof will be more waterproof if you use nails every 2 inches on the seams of rolled roofing... NOT!

And, it does create much more work when removing the roof, of course.

Here is a shot after several hours of removal. Three layers of roofing, 1 layer of plywood, and 4 more layers of roofing.  And, it's 90+ degrees outside too!

The next day Dan began to work on removing the roofing material from the guest bath area that he had uncovered the week before.

The previous roofer had wrapped the eve of the main roof, on down to the lower roof, with rolled roofing. This is kind of a creepy photo... it reminds us of the Borg for some reason.

The roof was very "spongy" in several places on this section. Dan noticed that there was an added layer of some kind. He began to pry it up...

It was a double-thick layer of some kind of fiber board (acts like a sponge when water is present). Note the water staining... and the hole on the left side of the roof.

Definite problem. Maybe we should just stop now and cover everything back up.  :-)

Dan didn't think that was a good idea.
This section had a lot of water damage. I don't know if you have been able to tell from these photos but this section of roof slopes toward the back of the house.
At first we could not figure out why in the world someone would build the roof like that???
Then we realized that this section of roof was original but the roof to the rear was a later add-on (the master bath, closet and bedroom). This still does not explain why they didn't build this section of roof up the be even with the main roof. Well, we are going to fix it right this time. "Hold on little house we are going to fix you up right."


Of course water damage isn't the only kind of damage we found...

No wonder the roof was spongy...

Termites! Fortunately this is old damage. But boy were they hungry!

To be continued...

The Roof Saga, part 2

As we explained in the last post our roof has issues (yes, we know that's an understatement). Now that it's summer we want to correct the issues and re-roof it properly.

As you may recall, this section of roof was in very bad shape and leaked badly.
In the last post we explained that we just did enough work to get it rain worthy, but we knew that it was only temporary... what we didn't mention is that Dan had actually looked under all that metal roofing and saw another roof.
We decided that it was time to bring what was in darkness into the light. 

Dan began by taking off the temporary flashing and the eve extension that he built
last December and then he started removing the corrugated metal roofing.

 The previous builder (and we use that term loosely) had used 2" x 6" rafters with some 10" wide tongue and groove boards for roof decking. The tongue and groove was very dry and brittle.

With all the metal roofing and roof decking off a new mystery appeared...
It may be hard for you to see the issue from this photo...

But now you can see the issue.

The original roof over the guest bath is lower by 16" or so than the main roof!

Here are a couple of shots so you can see the roof arrangement better.

Here is a shot from a different angle
(standing on the roof of the studio area, looking toward the street).

What is up with this design?!!!

More to come...

The Roof Saga Begins

(Please note that this work actually took place in December of 2011.)

Before we even moved in we were aware that our roof leaked.

There were obvious water stains in the master bedroom. If you look carefully at this picture you can see were the wall on the right has been water damaged and repaired.

Up on the roof Dan could spot the problem areas rather quickly. This picture was taken while standing on the roof looking toward the front of the house. The master bath is under the raised section covered with the silver corrugated roofing material. Beyond the master bath, under the same raised corrugated roof section, is what we call the guest bath.

This photo was taken while standing over the kitchen,

 looking toward the back of the house and the 'sunset room'.

 The previous owner told us that she had to go up every winter and patch the roof with "Henry's roof patch". Hmmm...seems like a band-aid when actually what is needed is surgery!

Looking down on that same raised roof.

This lines up with the master bedroom wall that shows water damage.

Because we knew the rains were coming soon we decided that we needed to work on a quick solution that would prevent further water damage. Then we could work on replacing the whole roof in the spring or summer.

Dan decided to do two things to minimize the chance of further damage. First, he would tear off all of the damaged siding and build a small eve or overhang to minimize the water running down onto (and probably behind) the siding.

Second, he put in some temporary flashing and new siding.

So, here is a photo of the eve that Dan and my brother-in-law built.

It has an overhang of about 1 foot.

You might also notice that he put down new flashing on top of the old roofing.

He sealed it to the roofing using this stuff. It has a foil 'face' and the other side is kind of a rubber-tar that the guy at Home Depot said would definitely stick. 

Being winter, it was pretty cold when Dan was working on this project. Since it was important to work with this tape while it was warm, he heated up the rolls in front of the fireplace.

Here is a close up of the flashing held in place

(roofing nails in the rough siding and the patch tape on the roofing).

He then put a layer of 30# tar paper over the rough siding and flashing. He re-used the old siding if it was not too water damaged. He did trim it a little so that the edge of the siding would not come in contact with rain water flowing down the flashing.

This photo shows the previous water damage and how much he trimmed off.

Here is a close up of the new siding section.

Remember, this was a temporary fix so we weren't going for pretty,

just effective (his words, not mine).

Here are a couple of shots of the finished work.

And good news! We went through the whole rainy season without any leaks...

in this section of the roof anyway...

Dan has been hard at work lately and the roof has changed greatly over the past several weeks. Stay tuned!

Well... thank you for reading and goodbye for now...