Roofing (or reroofing)

Roofing is not one of my favorite things. Better than drywall, but not by much. That is especially true when I have already done it once. I have some old posts here about how I handled the original roofing, with a coating material. At the time, it seemed fine, but nothing I was super impressed about. As the years have gone by, I have noticed that some of the coating was failing. Even though I followed instructions to a T, I could see the seams. Eventually, that turned to full blown leaks. I knew I was going to have to replace it all, but didn’t have a sense of urgency to do so. The leaks were not getting into the house. I had the roof coating, a spray foam barrier, a waterproof coating on top of that, and the metal container roofs all keeping water out – so leaks in the outermost membrane were not a high level of concern.

However, I was more motivated to replace the roof when I started planning for solar panels on the top container roof. I have to have a ladder on the larger section to get up to the highest section. Soft spots in the roof become a little more concerning when the ladder starts to find them. I bit the bullet and put metal roofing on everything. That required that I replace the decking. The decking was the only thing that I did not carry up 3 flights of stairs by myself. Solar panels and metal roof panels – yes, believe it or not. I installed everything on my own too. Roofing with these methods is not that difficult for one person to do if you don’t have a major pitch to deal with. This was the reason I made the main section walk out, so I could service it myself in the future.

While I was at it, I went ahead and added some purlin extensions to the uppermost roof so it can hold another row of solar panels. Reroofing does not require a permit in Houston, but I will have to get a permit to put the solar panels into service. As it stands, I have both areas of roof (upper and lower) completely finished. I am ready to install the solar panels on the top section. I should be able to produce 8-9000 watts with the panel array I have planned. It should be more than enough to run my house and charge the batteries. My hope is that I never have to do any maintenance to the roofing now that the metal is down. Maybe one day, I will build a deck up there.