Roof Replacement: Suggestions and what do about my roof in a roof
I’m a fairly new homeowner and the last month we had a leak in our roof. We knew coming into the home that we were going to have to replace the roof, so this really kicked that into motion. We already found a company to do everything, but I have a couple of questions:
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Anything I should try and do while the roof is off? I’m going to coordinate with roofers already to air seal the drywall/penetrations along the top plate and add some insulation in difficult/awkward to reach areas. Anything else I should do while I have this opportunity? It’s a hip roof if that changes anything.
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Originally, the house didn’t have a porch in the front. Previous owners added a porch, and to cover it they just built a new roof segment above of the existing roof but extending over the porch (see a drawing here). The leak we got highlighted a visibility issue – it was actually a double roof leak: it first leaked through our exterior roof somewhere (we don’t know where for sure) and also leaked through the interior roof. My current plan is to ask the roofer to remove the boards/shingles of the interior roof to open things up so we have visbility. Does this seem like a good idea or will this lead to structural problems?
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Replies
pnwdiy,
1. Air sealing is really it. As long as you don't find moisture related damage in the rafter bays, I would concentrate on that.
2. Hipped roofs can rely on the sheathing to resist lateral loading. removing the roofing makes sense, but I would hesitate to take of the sheathing.
I did this since the sheathing was rotten and needed to come off anyway:
https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/roofing/roof-vent-retrofit-outside
Unfortunately, I am not a skilled carpenter and couldn’t do the work myself in a timely manner with no roof on the house. I found it difficult to find roofers to do this work. I finally found someone but the quality of the work could have been better and if I do it again, I will find a carpenter who also does roofing instead of trying to find a roofer willing to do carpentry. I did all of the air sealing myself from inside the attic after the roof was done. I purchased an extra long foam gun to accomplish this.