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old man on a roof

Started by grouch, May 13, 2017, 11:29:58 PM

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grouch

This project consumed time and focus like a cow eating clover on the other side of the fence. I fell into a sort of tunnel vision just looking to get the next step done while constantly thinking, "Gotta move; this weather won't hold, rain is coming."

The weather mostly held and now I'm going to tell this tale. I know there are lots of folks here who think of doing it themselves first and hiring it done comes second, third or farther down the list.

Sometime while putting the roof on this thing I never should have built in the first place, I remember thinking, "If I don't fall off of here and break my neck, and it doesn't fall apart, I'll be back up here re-roofing in my 60s." Well, I'm pretty sure I survived, and the house is still standing, and those shingles were starting to look ragged, so the job seemed ripe.

Remember VHS tapes? Screenshots from a recording made one morning while waiting for the sun to straighten out wrinkles in the roofing felt:










Those are either 25 year or 30 year fiberglass / asphalt shingles. Either way, the warranty is not quite up, but I had a plan for getting steel roofing up there while I'm still able.

The house is 36 ft x 52 ft with a 2nd story of 36 ft x 40 ft. The main roof is a simple gable at 6:12 pitch with 2 ft overhang both sides and 1 ft overhang at the gables. It's 19 ft from ground to soffit on the back side. A deck roof sticks out in the way on the front.

When I was young and foolishyet, I relied on pucker power and being nimble to shingle that roof.  I don't have those features any more. I needed something to keep me on the roof in order to be able to put the roof on -- a fence on the front and scaffolding in the back.
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rjwoelk

I am on my way east with a genie lift ,will that work. ;D.
I think you may need to get in line Brad barb was interested in using it as well.
Lt15 palax wood processor,3020 JD 7120 CIH 36x72 hay shed for workshop coop tractor with a duetz for power plant

tree-farmer

Looking at a similar situation, 18 yrs on a 25 yr shingle. You mentioned going to steel, would you need to remove  shingles first?
Anyone have experience with leaving shingles vs removing them when putting on metal roofing?
In any case be safe, a 19 foot fall or more would be a life changing or ending event. Old bones do not bounce.
Old doesn't bother me, its the ugly that's a real bummer.

69bronco

Quote from: tree-farmer on May 14, 2017, 07:04:47 AM
Looking at a similar situation, 18 yrs on a 25 yr shingle. You mentioned going to steel, would you need to remove  shingles first?
Anyone have experience with leaving shingles vs removing them when putting on metal roofing?
In any case be safe, a 19 foot fall or more would be a life changing or ending event. Old bones do not bounce.
No need to strip if your going over with steel. You should however put down a break between the two. We always used furring strips, they also make a (z) purlin in steel. The expansion and contraction of the steel rubbing on shingles will actually cause it to rust from the backside.

21incher

I got 24 years out of a 25 year roof. Last year I had it replaced and it did not cost much more to have it replaced by a roofing company then if I had done it myself. The new shingles come with a 50 year warranty. Ill never have to worry about them again. :)
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

grouch

Judging by the responses so far (thanks all!) I goofed in the opening post; the main roof is on at this time. It's going to take some time to get the photos and descriptions up, but the part that had me worried and somewhat desperate is over.

Quote from: rjwoelk on May 13, 2017, 11:39:10 PM
I am on my way east with a genie lift ,will that work. ;D.
I think you may need to get in line Brad barb was interested in using it as well.
Thanks, but I googled that and that thing's too tall and spindly for me!


Quote from: tree-farmer on May 14, 2017, 07:04:47 AM
Looking at a similar situation, 18 yrs on a 25 yr shingle. You mentioned going to steel, would you need to remove  shingles first?
Anyone have experience with leaving shingles vs removing them when putting on metal roofing?
In any case be safe, a 19 foot fall or more would be a life changing or ending event. Old bones do not bounce.

Some steel roofing manufacturers specify shingles have to be removed, most don't, but all that I've researched require some type of cushioning material between the shingles and steel. Most common (cheapest) is 30 lb roofing felt. There are also various insulating materials that can be put down to help reduce heat gain in the attic as well as protect the steel from the shingles.

You don't want more than 2 layers of roofing, so if you already have 2 layers of shingles, you may as well remove them all before installing steel. That would let you inspect your roof deck for damage, too.

BTW, almost half of fatal falls in construction are from less than 20 feet.

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grouch

The first thing I needed to do was modify my scaffolding. I'd already built 20 ft of scaffold to rebuild and roof my son's deck.



5 ft on the deck, 15 ft to the right in this photo:


Note the 15 ft part is on a 2x6 track. That worked for the nearly level area outside his basement. It would be a royal pain to make and level such a track on the slope behind my house. I needed wheels and outriggers.





Replaced my stack of washers with spacers cut from 1/2 inch (trade size) pipe:

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grouch

Cross bracing on scaffolding is not generally designed for resisting the jolts of moving around on rough ground.





And some outriggers...












I wanted the ends closed, but not at the very end.








And except for adding a trailer jack to each outrigger, the scaffold was ready:

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thecfarm

Sounds better than old man on the ground.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

grouch

After the scaffolding and other than ordinary work that always needs doing, I just had to wait for roofing weather.





and wait...





and wait...




(The weird colors are because that's a night shot. That was intended to be a garden instead of a swamp).

Even the 4th of July:




Now I know lots of roofers who seem to ignore the heat. I can't. August didn't cool until near the end:


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grouch

Quote from: thecfarm on May 14, 2017, 10:06:46 AM
Sounds better than old man on the ground.

I want you to know that I had an expert at climbing supervising the scaffold modifications:


Or maybe she was just hypnotized by the welding.
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grouch

First thing you do when you want to install steel roofing is buy about 1650 lbs of lumber, right?





That quikrete is there because the load was almost perfectly balanced without it. I didn't want to pull an active see-saw down the road.

I have a truck. I bought it, it's registered in my name, I just don't get to use it. My truck stays hitched to my son's fishing boat. I think he just likes the numbers -- he's a 1981 model year, driving a 1980 Dodge D150, pulling a 1979 Ranger. Oh well, the little HF trailer has a higher payload anyway.

And we're off...


Some 6x6x16 posts




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grouch

Needs more lumber:


(That dog has ordered something. He has to check out every bag, box or trailer of stuff that arrives).

See? Not what he ordered.


You can see that I listened to that spider.





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grouch

At this point there was a mishap that derailed things for a while.

Just before Christmas of 2015, the big dog, Marshall, tore his left cruciate ligament while chasing a deer. That's pretty much the equivalent of a human's ACL. My wife and I both rejected surgery because of the uncertain outcomes and lack of independent studies of the results. (Almost all reports I could find are by the surgeons who benefit from it). He had almost fully recovered, even trotting occasionally, after nearly a year of reduced activity and diet.

Late on Sept 29, 2016 I heard him yelp for only the second time ever. I think he stepped in a hole, but can't be sure. He couldn't stand at all. He tried to drag himself across the yard. It was getting near dark and I was not about to leave him out there. I've never been without a dog, but Marshall is only the 2nd one I've ever allowed in my house. The previous one was 34 years earlier and about 235 pounds lighter.

I found a 3 ft x 4 ft piece of 1/4 inch plywood, drilled some holes around the perimeter and coaxed him up on it. I strapped him to it with ratchet tie-downs, put a loop of polypropylene baling twine in a hole in the end of the plywood and used a crowbar to pull it along like poling a barge or pirogue. That was too slow and scary for him, so I hitched a come-along and pulled him up the rest of the way across the yard, past the construction area and up on the porch. Cardboard boxes provided a bearing surface.

She calls him, "my baby".


That night, he tried desperately to get to the door, peed in the floor, and was so shamed by it he refused to come back inside for 3 days and nights. He spent that time in my garage. I made a trail of rubber stall mats and cardboard boxes for him to drag himself out to the yard and back to do his business.

It was awful watching him drag himself around.



For a long time, he could only stand when I helped by putting my hands between his hind legs and lifting. He also needed help walking during that time. He outweighs me by about 100 pounds, but he doesn't give up.

By Oct 5, he was able to stand while urinating, twice. By the 19th, he climbed on the couch without help, 3 times. On Nov 11, he walked a lap around the pond but had to stop to rest 9 times. His hackles were up the whole time so he was moving by pure determination.
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Ox

Loving the pics, thx for sharing
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

grouch

Back to building the fortress...

Two posts were 6x6 x 16 ft, the others were 6x6x12 and 6x6x8. Everything is braced in 2 directions using 2x6x8s, 2x6x10s and 2x6x16s.


Strange place to put a rail fence. The mail carrier asked if I was adding on to my house. Looks a bit flimsy for that. It just has to stop an old man using the roof as a sliding board. The bottom rails were screwed on while standing on the deck roof. That gave me a place to brace against as I added 2nd and 3rd rails to each successive section, starting at the head of that long ramp.


The 6:12 ramp was completed 2016-10-14.


The ramp itself acts as the diagonal bracing for the four 6x6x8 posts. A fifth 6x6x8 is laid horizontally on bricks for the foot of the ramp to rest on. Between the ramp rails are 2x4s on 2 ft centers.

The location of the ramp was dictated by (1) that box elder tree and (2) a clear space between my wife's flowers. Strangely, those flower beds are a higher priority than a roof over head. :) It still worked out nicely for 8 ft spans between pairs of posts.


I had originally planned to put up just 2 rails above the eave. When I got up there, it was obvious it would be easy to slide down the steel roofing and flip right over the 2nd rail. So I added a 2x6x10 on the other side of each 2x6x8 upright, and screwed a 3rd rail on.

Here's a crop of one of the above pictures that may show what I mean. (Please ignore the algae).


Planning for this contraption began with planning for a garage extension and a place to shelter sawmill, tractor and implements. That morphed into plans for 2 garage extensions instead of a separate building. I worked backwards from those plans to what kind of safety railing and ramp could be built and re-use the lumber.

If you squint just right and maybe use a couple of mirrors, you can see those garage extensions in the pictures. Ok, it might need sleep deprivation or some adult beverages to see it, but it's there!

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coxy

i remember the first metal roof i did you had to nail well i started sliding and slammed the claws of the hammer through the metal roof i never fell off but after that someone else put the rest of it on  :)

grouch

Quote from: coxy on May 15, 2017, 07:25:45 AM
i remember the first metal roof i did you had to nail well i started sliding and slammed the claws of the hammer through the metal roof i never fell off but after that someone else put the rest of it on  :)

Would that have been 5v roofing or the corrugated stuff?

First I ever nailed was corrugated and was nearly a flat pitch. Used the old lead head nails for that. The 5v is easier to slide on, even if you hook the side of your shoe sole on the nail heads. My mother's house has that on it.
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grouch

View from the top with a stack of 23 ft steel roofing at the foot of the ramp:


Other side, 20+ ft scaffold sticking up:






Missing a football game on in the garage:


A long way to drag 28 sheets of metal:

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grouch

First sheet up the ramp:


3/8 inch fiberglass rods jammed between the rails to keep the sheet I was dragging from scratching the sheet below it:


First sheet went on the far side, starting at the end away from prevailing winds:


A makeshift jig to help align the next sheet:


My son teaches and coaches and has 2 pre-school toddlers, but he managed to be there at critical times. One such time was to unload the roofing from a trailer to that ramp. Another was getting that first sheet aligned. It would have been much tougher and slower to have to clamp it, move down to the scaffold, adjust and repeat.

I'm not sure what each panel weighed, but they were unwieldy at best, especially crossing over the ridge. I dragged them up the roof on cardboard to avoid scratches to the underside. (Roofing felt wasn't on the front side at this time. Traction).
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grouch

It took 3 days to staple the 30 lb roofing felt on the east side, snap chalk lines, make a chicken ladder, remove ridge vent and fully screw down 5 sheets of roofing. Each sheet was dragged the full length of the ramp, one at a time. That had to change.

I'd already had a longer stretch of fair weather than was reasonable to expect -- even the wind hadn't gotten above 5 mph.

Then it rained, followed by wind gusts of 15 mph. But only for 1 day.

The whole stack inching up the ramp, courtesy of a 2 inch tie-down strap (3335 lb w.l.l.), some 3/8 inch chain, a 1900 lb capacity boat winch with wire rope, a come-along, a maple tree and some cardboard:




Can you see the wire rope and chain?


Whole stack to the eave:






There's the hook end of the 2 inch strap with a cardboard cushion:


No more crab-walking up those blasted 2x4s two feet apart while dragging a 23 ft sheet of steel one-handed:

That's the top of the maple tree in the background. The wire rope on the boat winch goes over the ridge, hooks to a 3/8 chain which hooks to a 1/2 inch chain which wraps around the trunk of that tree.

The edges of my cardboard track for dragging sheets up the roof were starting to curl from the rain the day before. Had to re-staple. Only stepped on that once and didn't fall or let the sheet go back down the hill much.
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coxy

in the first pics I was wondering what heck you where building  :D but I understand now and I would have never though of that  when my dad did the roof for the house we picked it up with the log loader the first few units was a pain till we got it right on the last few units  :) but that's the way it goes    are you done with it or just start it  the metal I nailed was the same as your using    the nails was a lot cheaper  for a young guy with his first kid on the way now every thing gets screwed much easer to take apart when you mess up and I do it a lot never clamed to be a carpenter and never will :D :D

grouch

coxy:

Nothing I have would lift that metal high enough to get it on the roof. I had to go ancient Egyptian and build a ramp. I just used wood instead of sand and mud. :)

That last photo was taken 2016-10-28. During the time this was going on, I had blinders on. Weather and that roof totally occupied me from the time I'd get up until the time I went to bed. Normally when I grab my camera, I take photos of everything that catches my eye on the way to whatever made me grab the camera. There are hardly any photos of anything but that roof for that whole time period.

I used an impact driver for running the screws in. I've seen people use drywall screwguns and rely on the clutch setting, but that usually results in over tightened, under tightened and broken screws. Every screw in this roof was run in until the rubber washer touched, then backed out to let everything relax, then run in until the washer compressed properly. There's no substitute for a person's eyeball and judgment for some jobs, in my opinion.

Well, until they make a cheap robot that measures torque and the bulge of the washer while running in the screw. Even then, I'd want somebody (who has an interest in the job) watching the robot.
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grouch

The day after getting the stack to the top of the ramp was Saturday and my son was on the scaffold helping align sheets most of the day. Got 7 sheets put on that day. 4 were only partially screwed down -- I wanted to get as many aligned and 'tacked' as possible while he was there. Not even pictures from that day.

My ox was in the ditch, so I finished off the east side on Sunday and started the felt on the west side.



My homemade scaffold in all its glory:


And the outriggers...

What? You don't have any clutter in your back yard?
All the wheels were off the ground. The outrigger in the lower left of the picture is sitting on a 9x10 block that's sitting on a pair of 6x6s with some 2xsomething chunks at their ends. Scaffold was level, plumb and more stable than any I've worked from.

A strip of plastic was used to close up the ridge vent at night.
That lump in the middle of the ridge is where my "Fall Protection Kit" is anchored to the trusses inside with a 1/2 inch log chain.


I used 3/4 inch pipe insulation tied to the rails of the chicken ladder to avoid scratches. The ladder is anchored to the railing at the eave of the other side of the roof.


Pretty straight:


The anchor rope (actually, 2; I like redundancy) passes through the hollow rung of the ladder.


That dimpling is not caused by overtightened screws; it's from the shingles underneath. Some people object to that look and remove the shingles first. From the ground, you have to be looking for it to notice. Doesn't bother me at all.


That oak tree is an old buddy. Was practically a sapling when we moved here.


Screws are 24 inches on center, eave to ridge, measured and marked but *not* pre-drilled. Drilling the holes can cause leaks and damage the coating from heat and chips. Manufacturer claims graphite pencil marks can lead to corrosion, so a Sharpie was used for marking.


Any one of the 12 strands holding that lower ladder section to the upper could hold my weight.


Hmph. Bad photographer. I swear that lump is what anchored my fall protection rope and harness.


Ok, a distraction from the (other) bad photography -- shot looking down from the scaffold:


That's a 3v 3/8 geodesic dome with 11.82 ft radius (close enough for me to 24 ft diameter), made out of 3/4 inch conduit. My wife hangs plants from it. I just wanted to build one. The maroon thing is yet another project: 1984 Mercedes 300D turbo diesel. The engine is interesting to me. Don't care about the rest of it.
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Ox

Love the country engineering and safety factors.  Roof looks great, too.

5 cylinder turbo diesel Mercedes - reported to be a 500,000 mile engine with proper maintenance.

I'm also partial to certain trees.  I've got an old black cherry close to the house that looks like hell warmed over but I refuse to cut him down.  He's my buddy.  Now and then some deer will come out in the fall and nibble on the little black fruits that fall off from him.  He stood up to the straight line 70+ MPH gust from the last storm so he can stay.  :laugh:

Where did you get the fittings to put your dome together?  It's very interesting to me... I'd like to know more about it.  Plans?  Just put together from your mind?  How strong?  If you covered it would it hold up to a couple foot deep snow load?
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

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