Central PA Living: Amish Roofing Hit Squad

The Amish roofing team showed up at 6:15am while I was still staging materials and worked almost non-stop for ten hours. Stupendous progress was made. Sticky Ice and Water shield underlayment was put on the entire main house roof and the difficult to start roofing transition from main roof to connect roof was done along with completing the sheathing on the backside of the connect to the previously sheathed garage. They also got the skylights installed in the roof over deck roof. This means that the main round is now pretty much rainproof, which is great as storms are coming and the water does no good inside the house.

Elise and Aaron kept at foaming, sealing and tightening up the shell. They also packed the black van full to the roof with the paper backing off the ice and water shield that will head to the dump shortly.

Dad continued to complete section after section of deck framing and got the unplanned for rear deck ledger boards installed. Looks like we have enough pressure treated lumber leftover for the joists on that deck, which is pretty sweet (or pretty scary, where was it supposed to be used? Hmmmmmm....).

The Perryman brothers connected the stubbed out water, sewer, phone, electric and an extra empty conduit to the basement, so as soon as I get an electrician in I can get a breaker box setup and a few circuits put in by it so we don't need generators running.

So what is this ice and water shield I keep blathering about and why did I use it instead of regular roofing underlayment? The ice and water shield is a sticky backed 40 mil thick rubber/tar product with a PVC/plastic top side. It's this stuff. In my case I used the 300 series high temp version which is designed to be used under metal roofs which can get hot. It's commonly used (mandatory for energy star) in roof valleys which carry water. The rubber seals to penetrations (like all the nail or screws that hold a roof on) making a very effective shield against leaks.

I'm using metal roofing, but not standing seam metal roofing which hides the screw heads. Standing seam has an upslope side, so with lots of angle cuts (as this roof is like 20 pie piece shaped wedges) you really have a lot of waste. The exposed screw type metal is reversible, so all the cut pieces can be flipped 180 and used. The issue with exposed screws is that they have a rubber/silicone washer that seals against the roof to keep water from leaking in around the screw and rusting the screw holes and screws out. Those washers expire before the screws or roof (20-30 years) and water MAY leak in when that happens. At that point the washer/screw heads all need silicone seal to be slathered on them or they need to be replaced. The WIP 300 seals against the screw under the roofing, giving a second layer of insurance against leakage.

This is extra important when one insulates the roof with spray foam. The two types of foam (open cell and closed cell) both have some weaknesses against water. When exposed to leaks the open cell becomes a giant sponge and you probably don't know anything is wrong till it peels in a huge 10,000 pound mass off the underside of the roof and falls onto your bedroom ceiling. Closed cell repels the water, but traps it against the wooden roof sheathing and maybe even trusses, which then would rot, causing roof failure. Long and short is that preventing leaks with a super duty underlayment was cheap piece of mind and will result in longer term roofing performance.

I worked on site cleanup and staging of next weeks materials till after dark as it looks like rain is coming in this weekend and it's easier to do those things when it's not muddy. Long and short is I have fewer photos than I wanted to end the week. Maybe more tomorrow if the rain isn't too continuous.