Like every part of our homemade storage building project, the roof was a learning experience.  We chose to reuse salvaged tin from the old house we tore down, and I wish I'd taken the time during demolition to mark the order in which the sheets of tin came off the roof.  Instead, we ended up with a mixture of pieces of tin from different parts of the roof, and when we put them up on the new roof, the holes in the overlapping ridges didn't line up from one piece to the other.  It wasn't too hard to make a pilot hole in the bottom piece of tin with a nail then fit in the roofing screw, but extra holes in your roof are never a good thing.

Learning experience two was all about lining up the tin.  Our building isn't quite square, and I decided to line up the long side of the tin with the short edge of the building and let the short side of the tin be not quite parallel with the long edge of the building.  Mistake!  By piece of tin number three, it was clear that my tin was no longer going to cover the top wooden cross-piece unless I gave in and tugged it up a bit.  I ended up with a roof with slightly jaggedy top and bottom edges rather than straight lines across.  Hopefully when we add the gutter, the jaggediness will be less visible.

Mark kindly didn't comment on my roofing inadequacies....  Thanks, honey!

This post is part of our Building a Storage Building from Scratch series.  Read all of the entries: Part 1: Foundation Foundation leveling Laying the groundwork Cedar post foundation experiment Foundation progress How long will a cedar post last? Cedar post foundation update Part 2: Floor Floor joists Home made storage building floor Part 3: Walls and scavenging lumber Homemade storage building window wall Raising the first two walls Raising another wall Scavenging lumber 01-01-10 level Nail deletion on scavenged lumber Snags in the building process Measuring diagonals Another wall section Miter saw measurements Part 4: Adding the loft A second chance at floor building Loft walls Last loft wall Chipmunk builders in love video Part 5: The roof Adding a header Roof rafters Advantages and disadvantages of scavenging lumber Modified bracket closeup Roofmate Homemade storage building tin roof What I learned on the roof Summing it up: Intentionally underbuilding How much does it cost to make a storage building?

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.