Monday, June 27, 2011

Roofing The Fun, The Challenge


When you have never roofed anything in your life and you watch all the video's, read the books, and talk to the experts you still don't know, what you don't know. This has been an excellent learning experience but it has been a lot slower going then I expected. Good thing is we are talking our time and really trying to do this right. To explain our process. After the entire structure was in place we took 12 inch wide butel tape and ran it down the ridgecrest. Then we have laid down Dupont Roofliner shingle fashion. It is nailed on with nails that have a once inch plastic cap on them. I am using a Styrofoam gap filler on the lower edge to help hinder bug visitations who want to join me in my mobile cottage.

We then started with the side of the roof that has no vents in it. The big key here is getting the first panel on square and having the whole roof centered to fit the metal covers for the eaves. I have about 4 and a 1/2 inches on each end to play with that will be covered by these pieces.
Once that side was done we started working on the vent side and the first vent we came to was the one for the composting toilet. As I grabbed the toilet from my storage locker I noticed a tear in the box that I did not see when I picked it up several months ago. My bad as I pulled the unit it out it clearly had come in contact with the fork of some forklift. Big time bummer for the $1600.00 toilet. I bought the Biolet from Faucetline.com. We will see how this all works out.

I was able to line up the vent and cut the whole in the roof. Then going outside we identified where the hole is centered it and then prepped the area with butel window tap and then covered the actual hole area Dupont Flex Wrap that I used for the sill plates on the windows and doors. I have a large rubber gasket that came with the unit that will mount under the metal, so Stet created a cardboard template and then we proceeded to cut out a whole for the vent in the metal roof material.



 We ran out of time for the weekend and will hopefully have the metal roof done this up coming weekend. Once the main roof is down, then goes the ridge cap (that will be interesting) and lastly the eave covers. One of the tricks we are doing is where at the lower edge of the roof we have not put on any trim work so we screwed in some 2x4x12's  and took some blocking and have them screwed in place for roof supports and a brace to stand on while working on the upper edge of the roof sections.
This has been a big help and really adds a safety factor to crawling around on the roof.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Well It Is About Time

Yes this looks like the Mini Mobile Cottage is moving from where we started in January with a raw trailer and did all the framing. We are out of the pole barn and into the yard. This is the major milestone I have been having my dreams about. No the trailer didn't buckle, the tires didn't pop, the truck didn't get stuck. Everything worked without a flaw and I was pretty dang pleased about that. The first part of the plan was to get it out of the barn, once that was accomplished we needed to get her in to position so that we could level it.

The leveling took a bit as the ground we are working on was not even close to level with about 8 inches of variance. With a little effort, two jacks and several jack stands I was rock solid and good to go. Time to get all those rafters that are sitting on the floor up on the cottage roof. We took some 12 foot 2x4's and nailed them to the end of the trailer as guides and put the first rafter in place and then measured out exactly 2ft on center for each of the others. This would make putting up the plywood with less waste as we could use more full sheets. As you can see we did get the cottage level. So level I had to take a picture of it!


I rented two sections of scaffolding and I will tell you that was a great investment and a huge time saver. We only have two of us working on this and any other strategy would not have allowed us to get done what we accomplished. I will say after three days of moving up and down ladders, climbing on roofs, and just general work I was plum tuckered out. We used Simpson ties to attach the rafters to the trailer and I am highly confident that the roof is not coming off. That is unless I run it under a bridge that is a little to low.


We had no issues getting the rafters up, everything came out reasonably square with no big wavy bumps that would cause me grief. We got the remainder of the plywood screwed and glued in place and covered her with tarps. We have another week of hopefully little to no rain in the Pacific NW to wait through to get the metal roof on. All three days of the roof project so far were dry! While my original plan was a bit ambitious which was to have the roof a 100% complete after a three day weekend (I took Friday off). I was not able to accomplish all that. So for next weekend we are at a point where we will be able to get all the underlayment on, the butel ridge cap and then put all the metal roofing on. I have some eave covers that we will have to see if they make the final version.

While I like the way the metal eaves look in my minds eye, I am not sure what they will look like on the cottage. I am now eager to start thinking about the plan around the insulation stage. Then we will be cooking with gas and can start on the interior. I can't wait.