DIY Cedar Shingle Roof
 

Well, the weather was nice recently and my nephew E asked me to help him with an assignment: replace the roof on the shed at his house. I can bring my tools? We get to work with cedar? An outdoor project, in nice weather, with good company? Game on!

Here's E standing at the starting rung, ready to tear the roof off the sucka! Which we did, with our fingertips for the most part, occasionally resorting to small prybars for some nails.
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There was a single layer of roofing paper under the 23 year-old shingles, and it was MOSTLY intact, but that just means the accumulated water only poured through the roof in a few places.
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Kind of like skip sheathing, there wasn't a solid sheet of material for the roof. We cleaned it up completely. This part of the shed was still in good condition, so we started moving forward here, having completed our demolition work.
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Most of the first layer of roofing paper is on.
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We put on two complete layers of roofing paper, overlapping by about half. It was cut a little long, which we trimmed later.
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This is just a test fitting to determine what it looks like to have the first course doubled, and a five inch exposure.
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Fast forward a few courses later, we're running through the end of the bundle of shingles. I developed a strategy of lining up the new course of shingles across the entire width of the roof and paid attention to where the edges (not the ends side to side) lined up. I made sure no two courses had any shingles that had edges that lined up. Once I knew which shingles would be placed in which order, I then used a five inch wide shingle to determine how much of the undershingle to leave exposed, nailed down the first shingle, then slid the measuring board along, squaring up shingles along the way, nailing them down as I went.
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Looks nice, doesn't it? By the way, it smells divine. Almost done here.
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Shingles and shakes are laid differently.

We got a single board of bevel siding to replace four sections of siding that were pretty far gone. The vertical trim board missing from E's right at the edge of the front wall of the shed where he's working was replaced with new cedar on both sides of the front.
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Nearly done here. The last three courses of shingles were too long to fit on the roof and so we cut them down. Even the uppermost course was a little long and so we made the exposure of the next to top course four inches so we'd have more shingle to work with.
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Ridge boards on. You can see the shorter exposure on the upper courses. Not visible in this picture is the adjustment I made to the ridge board that was underneath. I cut a bevel along the length of the board so that when they overlap, it makes a less acute joint between the ridge boards.
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Victory pose!
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Good job, that change in exposure on the last course, don't mean shit and it's a smart move strength wise. In 25 years when you're re-roofing, you'll remember why you did that, and do it again. ;)

Shakes vs shingles: looks like the principal difference is how the underlayment is applied. We thought we asked for shakes, but we got shingles. Also, we definitely laid the roofing paper "shingle style". As for all those metric exposure and spacing and course offsets, we were a little less precise. And we used more nails, four per.

Once the cedar has a chance to dry out thoroughly, we'll get a can of wood preservative/water repellant and paint it on the exposed wood.

eta: thanks xoB!

I just noticed in the "victory pose" shot that you can see the bevel I put on the right hand ridge board. I did it caveman style, with the hatchet side of the shingle hammer, just slicing away rough chunks. I was careful to go with the grain and had to turn the board around near the end to keep from diving deeply into the board. It worked out. :)

That looks great. We don't do shingles much down here - either tiles or corrugated iron, mostly - but I like them.


Was all that done in one day?

Thanks. :)

It could have been done in one day, had E calculated the quantity of shingles required correctly. As it was, we discovered that we were one bundle short, thirty minutes after the lumber yard closed, but with another four hours of daylight remaining. It was a leisurely day and a half, including three trips to the lumberyard, and a couple trips to the hardware store and back to my house for tools.

Yeeeap, that's about normal. A bit more of this, or, we need one of those, or this bit doesn't fit with that bit. Back to the store.


Cheap handjobs are never a good idea. :D

My God, V. You really set yourself up for Z this time :D :D :D

sometimes, it's like that shit just writes itself.

I know what you mean... :D

Did you buy any new hammers? ;) Great job!

Good job uncle V !!!

And I, ll leave the hand job jokes to some body else ! ;)