Start Roofing

Every roofing project has to start somewhere. Getting this thing kicked off for the front porch is daunting at best. So daunting, in fact, that I built a test roof over the driveway, a smaller version of this one. Also I actually got a contractor to come by and look at it, his crew could frame and sheet this thing in a day or two, probably, and it would be done right. Then he took too long to schedule it, so I figure out how to do it myself in the meantime. It started with drawing on the building and the rim.

Before - the columns are done and painted, the rim is finished off

Drawing the plan on top of the post

I added some blocks in the rim to keep the joints tight

I drew on the roof there, and the siding to get my centerline

Already a warm day even though it was the end of March

The view from the roof

We also painted the front door pink, same as the side door

Street view at the start

Framing lumber - all 2x6's and a couple of 2x8's

The pollen hit the porch hard this spring

She didn't like the jigsaw very much

but was a natural with the circular saw

We started by buying the lumber after I was able to draw joist locations on the rim and figure out how many of those 16' boards I would need. Then I recruited my favorite helper to cut joists. We did math to calculate the distance, depth of the bird's mouth, and angle (5/12 pitch).

But you have to have something to hang those on. The biggest problem I found was how to hang the ridge board, and how to build the gable end. Well after some brainpower I came up with a way that I thought was going to work. I started by cutting the siding on the house to get the space needed, and tearing through the existing roof. Then I mounted a chunk of 2x6 to get the ridge supported.

before cutting - check out that siding

boom - cut in the siding & edge roof

really did a number cutting that out

That's a ridge beam!

Get a sense of the final height - also the first joist is against the house

Now the first 4 joists are in place! The ridge beam is now supported and stable

I added more supports for the front joists - gives me nailer space for the front gable end sheeting

also added some blocking

Got the 2nd row of joists up

So now I can start sheeting the gable end and add the lookouts over the top. The rest of the joists should go up pretty quick after that. Man I love framing.