Pete Pagano Reclaimed Wood Furniture & Decor
  • Reclaimed Wood Furniture
  • Decor
  • Plans
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

Roofing Work

1/28/2016

 
Every now and then we do work that's a little out of the ordinary for us, and the small roofing job this week was no exception. The client had a leaking sunroom roof, and the entirety of the problem was due to a relatively horrible sunroom design (the sunroom predated the clients purchasing the house many years ago). Long story short, there was absolutely zero flashing between the sunroom roof and the exterior wall of the house the sunroom butted up to. The only thing the sunroom installers did to keep the rain water that ran down the house's aluminum siding from going into the sunroom was...caulk. Gobs...giant, crazy fat beads of caulk.

Caulk is meant to seal up hairline cracks; anything larger than that and caulk by itself is a totally improper use of the stuff. Granted, if you look at the labeling on tubes of caulk - doesn't matter which kind, whether it's cheapo painter's caulk or high-end silicone - most of them will advertise that their product will work on cracks up to 1/2", 3/4" or even 1" thick, which is absurd. Caulk dries out, it shrinks, and especially with exterior applications, it deteriorates over time. To attempt to "seal" an addition's roof to the house by way of caulk and caulk alone, especially in the absence of any flashing...that's cutting corners. The adage that there are always 3 options: good, fast and cheap but you can only have 2 of the 3 was fairly appropriate in this instance; caulk was a cheap and fast installation solution, but it certainly wasn't a good one.

Long story short, we put a roof on top of a roof. By adding OSB sheathing and asphalt shingles that came close to matching the shingles on the rest of the house, we were able to also slide step flashing in behind the house's aluminum siding and into the new shingles, providing a rock solid means of diverting water from the wall of the main house onto the sunroom roof...not through it as had been happening previously.  

The job wasn't without challenges. The ridge beam was beyond rotten, undoubtedly due to poor roof design and years upon years of water infiltration. Securely attaching 1/2" OSB sheathing to an existing paper thin aluminum (and styrofoam!) roof wasn't easy. Having to cleanly and accurately cut roughly 40 linear feet of aluminum siding, as well as cutting 40 linear feet of step flashing, and then gently pry the aluminum siding away from the house in order to slide the step flashing in behind it...only cutting myself 1 time was a mild success.

Comments are closed.
    Subscribe


    ​Archives

    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    November 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    November 2012
    July 2012
    December 2011

    Rockler
  • Reclaimed Wood Furniture
  • Decor
  • Plans
  • Blog
  • Contact Us