First, the hat. I'm not a hat person, let alone a wide-brimmed, cowboy hat person. However, I don't like sunburns, so I made an exception and wore the above hat for the duration of the project. It's a very lightweight Panama Jack hat, and it worked.
As far as the fall harness, the hook in the back attaches to a very thick rope that you then attach to an anchor that you screw to the peak of the roof. There's a spring-loaded clip that you can very quickly adjust so that you have enough slack to work, but not enough to hit the ground if you fall. I went so far as to keep mine short enough that I wouldn't even go past the edge of the roof. It was literally impossible for me to fall off the roof.
After a few weeks, the rope became more of a hindrance than a help. I tripped over it several times. By that time, I was quite comfortable on the roof, and decided to go without it. If I had a steep roof, or a two story house, I would have used the harness the whole time.
As far as keeping it all waterproof, I had tied 6 ropes to the corners of the 3 tarps that were used to cover the roof, and attached them to the fence with bungee cords. On the roof side, the tarps went about a foot over the peak, and were screwed to the old roof using drywall screws and fender washers.
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| You can just make out the red and green ropes in the picture above. |
A few days later, while I was home, we had another wind/thunderstorm. I watched from a window as the wind would get under the tarp like a sail, and pull it up. It was at that point that I realized I needed a different system. I took the aluminum fascia back off, untied the ropes, and used drywall screws and fender washers on every other grommet, screwing them into the fascia. It took a lot longer to remove them every day, but I felt a lot more secure in their ability to hold in the wind.
One of the Saturdays, I had help from a couple friends. Having two people working on the roof doesn't make it twice as easy as on person, it's more like three or four times easier.
This their help, I got the first section of sheathing done, as well as two rows of ice & water barrier. That's the black stuff you see above. It comes in very expensive, very heavy rolls, is asphalt-based, and self-adhesive. Very adhesive. The idea is that it goes 2' up the roof past where the wall starts, and when you nail the shingles through it, the asphalt seals the nail holes. It helps to prevent ice dams from forming. It's not just a good idea, it's the law (code). You roll it out into place, position it carefully, and peel back half the backing. Stick it down. Walk on it to press it down. Then peel off the second half of the backing. Repeat for the second row, overlapping the two rows.
The grey/red ProArmor you see is synthetic underlayment. It's supposedly superior to traditional tar paper. Lighter, more water resistant, and pretty close in price. It installs like the ice & water barrier, but it either nails down with plastic-cap nails, or staples. I got a hammer tacker to make it easier. It's a stapler that you swing like a hammer. The momentum of the hammer tacker causes the staple to shoot through the underlayment and into the roof. Roll it into place, position it, staple. Use your other hand to smooth out the underlayment, and staple again.
Just make sure your finger isn't in the way, or you'll hit it with the hammer. I learned that the hard way on August 5th.
Here's a picture of my fingernail that day:
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| Ow. |
Needless to say, it's 2 months later, and it still looks horrible. The nail will eventually fall off, I give it another month or so. Without going into gory detail, it looks like the replacement nail is growing in nicely underneath it. Gross picture warning: I'm only going to post a link to the picture, in case you don't want to see it. It's NASTY.
The nasty picture you probably don't want to see of my horrible fingernail two months after hitting it with a hammer tacker. You have been warned.
Enough of that...
So after the sheathing, ice & water barrier, and underlayment have been installed, it's time to shingle!
Our local hardware store had a Senco coil roofing nailer on clearance, so I picked it up back in May. It wasn't much more than the Harbor Freight model. It's not apples and oranges, but the Senco roofing nailer was significantly lighter than the Harbor Freight framing nailer. Might just be the nature of the tool.
Installing the shingles is pretty easy. Just have to make sure you're lined up correctly, and you nail away. What was surprisingly time consuming and physically demanding was cutting the gable-end shingles. You don't want the ends of the shingles to straight up the roof, so you have to stagger them. You do so by cutting 6 1/2" off the side of the first shingle. The next shingle, you cut 13" off. Then 19 1/2", 26", and 32 1/2". Basically, adding 6 1/2" to each cut. That allows you to essentially make stair steps of the shingles. You only have to do this for the shingles that are along the gable edge, as that starts your stair step, which will continue along the entire roof. In the above picture (the one above my nasty finger nail), you'll see the outcome. On the bottom part of the picture, there are just 4 shingles installed in that row at that point.
Like so many of the individual components of this project, once you get the ball rolling it's just a matter of continuing until that part is done. When I got to the peak of the roof, I made sure the final shingle would overlap the top to keep water out.
This basic process would be continued, night after night, week after week, until I was done.
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