Chapter 112...Take Off A Leaky Metal Roof And Install Shingles

Off Grid...Chapter 112 5-26 Time for the shingle shopping experience. We stopped at our builders supply and looked at multiple samples. They only make one light green color and it has been discontinued...figuresMost of the shingles are darker...don't the manufacturer's feel this heat? I just don't understand the thought process of manufacturers. Looks like we will have to order a white shingle. Our salesman who we have known for years told us to order from Lowe's for the best price. We did end up buying the rest of the roofing material from him We got home with our new supplies. Here are the rolls of the water and ice which is an asphalt self stick roll out to protect our roof before we put the shingles on and our 4x4 posts to add ledgers to the house. Oh this is going to be a fun job..I can tell, lol. Mike started prepping for our roofing job. He started out by taking off our gutters. And the last of the gutters are coming down. June 7- We got a call from Lowe's and our shingles are in Now it's time to get some work done. They will be delivered tomorrow. Since we don't have out metal in yet we decide to kill some time by...you guessed it...playing with rocks June 8- Shingles are delivered and to our disappointment the metal did not get in. Back to the rocks...but we can't do much because it is brutally hot out. June 9- Yay..our metal is in. It got in late so we will have to do the work tomorrow. Mike does start to scrape the front of the house. For some reason we have always had trouble with his section on our house. The paint just doesn't want to take..and then it bubbles up. It is just nasty. Mike is coming up with a permanent fix for this section But for now he scrapes part of it. June 10- Time to start the roofing job. Here's our shingle pile First Mike takes off the old drip edge. First one down. We work our way around the house and get all of the old drip edge off. We bought some long 4x4 posts. We are going to screw the posts into the sides and the back of the house. This will give us a decent eave on the house. Then we will cover the top and edge of the eave with the metal that Mike had made. This will protect our house from getting wet from any bad weather Then we can change the roof. Once the old drip edge is off, Mike unscrews some of the metal roof. This will let us lift up the edges so we can install the 4x4 posts. We each lift up a section and clamp it to the roof. We found these new screws and they are so cool. No pre drilling required and they go right through the whole deal. This is the first time we tried these and they are great...expensive but worth it. Here's how they look. Mike drilling in the new lag screws. The first side of the house is done. The eaves are installed. I start to paint the part that will be seen after we put the metal on. We work our way to the other side. It's done and painted. And last we install the 4x4's on the back of the house. Now that the wood is up and painted it's time to add the metal. Mike had it specially made for this job. See how it wraps around the post and then there is a lip on it? This will make any water that rolls off the edges of the roof go away from the house and not drip down the sides. Whew...that's one part down. Now we are waiting for the weather to cooperate. Mike and I haven;t done a shingle roof in years so we don;t really know how long it will take us. We need good weather and no rain when we take off the metal roof, and we have no idea how bad it will be, and then we have to get the new roof on. It's going to be a very rough few days for us once we commit to do it. Right now...we are still getting rain each night and it is hot the roofing story. This is the day Mike and I have been anticipating and dreading at the same time. It's going to be a lot for just the two of us and we "hope" that the weather cooperates. There's nothing much scarier than ripping your old roof off and then have it rain So here we go: 6-13 We have no idea how long this will take us so we got up at 5:30 and we are ready to work. I get the coffee and Mike gets the tools together. We will both be on top of the metal roof unscrewing all of the screws until we don't have anymore. Then we can take the metal panels off the see what kind of problems we have. Here I am unscrewing the panels. Now that the whole roof is unscrewed we have to wait for it dry up a little. It rained last night so there is a lot of dew on the roof and moisture in the air. We go to the farm supply to order another piece of metal for the front of the house. Then it's back to work. We get back and we start to take the panels off the roof. Yup...Mike had reason to be concerned about our metal roof. Look at the leaks. We get more of the roof off and find more leaks. The worst area for leaks. Now that the old roof is off we have to get it dry before we can put anything new on top. Mike drying the roof using the blower. Bad leaks up front. We take a break to let the roof dry out some more. This is the scary part because you do not want it to rain with just the plywood on top of the house. Back up top we start to get ready. First Mike installs the new drip edge on the front of the house. Now it's time to get the plywood covered We are doing two coverings for this new roof. We don't want any leaks this time around. First we are going to lay down a product called ice and water and then we will install the new shingles on top of that. Ice and water is an asphalt underlayment that protects low slope roofs against leaks caused by ice dams and wind driven rain. Sounds good to me The roof is dry and ready to go. The ice and water comes in big heavy rolls. Mike and I have to lift them together to get them off the trailer and onto the roof. Mike wants to try and use the whole role at one time so we have less seams. It is a bear of a job trying to do it that way. It is a self sticking roll but of course the sticky stuff is on the underside. It is very heavy and hard to manage the rolls and get it stuck down easily. It also leaves kinks because it is just to heavy to manage. The first row is done. We do a few more rolls like that and now I am getting a bit cranky. It's just too hard to do it the way Mike wants to do it so I read the instructions. It says it is easier to install it in 10-12 foot sections. Whew...that is how we finish the job and it is so much easier to handle Ice and water is on. It was a tough day. Mike got something in his eye and I had a really bad headache all day but we got it done. Not like we had a choice The ice and water will protect the roof and this can actually stay on the roof for a month before it needs to be covered but that's not good enough for Mike and I, lol. We will start doing the shingles tomorrow morning June 14- It's going to be along day so it's time to get started. We go up top and start out by getting all of the tools and supplies together. That in itself can be a lot of work, lol. Mike gets the nails and nail gun on the roof along with a bucket full of tools. We opened up the shingles which we had to special order. They are an Owens Corning Shingle called Shasta White. They are supposed to be energy star rated and have a limited lifetime warranty. They are also rated for 130 MPH wind resistance. Unfortunately they are not really white They are more of a light gray with just a little hint of a lighter blue on spots Oh well...they will have to do. That's why we like to see, touch, and feel before buying but there were no "real" samples of this shingle. We had to go by the online color. Really, why would Shasta "white" be gray Tools and some of the shingles are up on the roof. I put some more of the shingles on the back of the house. Mike is going to do the nailing and I am going to bring the shingles to him...piece by piece I lay out the shingles for the first row. Mike starts off with the starter row which is the hardest part of the job. This row determines the straightness of you rows. We use a chalk line to get us going. Then Mike starts laying nailing the shingles into the roof with a 1/4 inch overhang. Mike is almost done with the starter row. The next couple of rows go smoothly and now we are up to the wood stove pipe. We have to reinstall the pipe and install the flashing and shingles around the pipe on top of the roof. I really hope this is the last time we move the wood stove pipe First Mike uses asphalt sealer around the pipe. Then he cuts the shingles to go around the pipe. Ahh...back on track again. We are past the pipe and we still have a really long way to go Once we got past the pipe we settled into a routine and we were able to do about 6 rows at a time. I would make sure Mike had shingles to nail and he would keep nailing. It's going to be a very long day but we are doing well...except for my headache again We finally make it to the water heater vent pipe. Mike has to reinstall that and install the tile around it. The small stuff like this always takes a lot of time. Mike putting the cut shingles around the vent pipe. We made it past the last pipe. Now it's just straight shingles We are beat. It's 8:00 and we call it quits. The past 2 days has been tough on us. We will finish up tomorrow morning. June 15- The last day for roofing..woo hoo. This is it. We got about 3/4's of the shingles done yesterday...now we just hope we have enough shingles We are back on track and working well together as usual We are almost done. Just this one little section and we are finished. We are finished with the ice and water and the shingles We made it by noon. It took us 2 1/2 days to do the roof. Not too bad for a couple of amateurs, lol. We still have to install the metal edges around the edges of the shingles but the hard part is over and we made it before any rain. We also got really lucky with the weather. It was cooler than expected and a little overcast so we didn't cook on top of the roof It was an incredible few days for us. We got the roof done faster than expected and we are very happy. I'm sure this roof will be much better, drier and quieter than the old metal roof I hope you all enjoyed the story. Lisa