Monday, October 15, 2007

Metal Roof

Fabral Grandrib-3 metal roof, the standard choice in these parts. The color is "tan" which should blend pretty well with the grassland aspects of the environment, if perhaps not so well with the trees. We actually preferred "forest green" but couldn't justify the heat load during the summer as that color absorbs about 2x as much heat.
Much cursing and minor bloodspill today. We got about 2/3's of the sheets up after several hours of puttering, talking, figuring out how to do things, making mistakes and so forth. If we had it to do again of course it would take half as long.
Roger's big innovation of the day is a ladder laying on the roof, suspended by a "deadman" (seen the photo here) which acts as a counterweight. The ladder on the roof gives a relatively safe working surface, albeit one that's a bit tough on the knees, shins, hips, etc. I'm wiped out this evening.
Today's Painful Lessons:
- The flanged bump goes UNDER the bump of the next sheet, not over.

- Avoid 45 degree angle roofs (more reasons to avoid them discovered today)

- Never use OSB for any structural purpose. Even though it's "rated" for our application, about 20% of the screws went through the metal and failed to get a proper bite in the decking. Plywood would not have failed in this way. OSB is cheap to buy, but not so cheap to work with. Plus it irritates the skin when you're putting up tarpaper on your 45 degree angle roof which the designer stupidly specified because he likes the look. Fire that guy!

We'll have to order a custom fabricated metal drip edge for the eaves because of the horizontal rafter cuts, but that should work OK for shedding water.

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