Choosing Roof Replacement Over Roof Repairs: A Maine Success Story with Home Roofing Solutions

One thing is for sure, not all roofing projects are the same! 

That was especially true when we were contacted by "Ed Rogers" to help him with some "very old roofing issues". At first glance, roof repair was on his mind as the solution to fixing some very old roof problems but after contacting our team at Home Roofing Solutions and expert advice from owner Joe Brasslett - the project went a different direction.

Read Ed Rogers story below, complete with photos of his roof replacement project!

Back in the 80’s I was pretty taken with the idea of building a log cabin home. However after visiting a few antique shops built in restored barns I decided that a barn was for us.

Didn’t take long before a confluence of events sealed the deal. I came across an ad for a post and beam frame for sale in Chester NH. I contacted the gentleman and scheduled a time to see it. After about 30 minutes on site I purchased the frame for $2000, and agreed to pay another $5000 for disassembly and re-erection on my prepared foundation.

The frame was missing some pieces, needed some repairs and was in generally good shape for a nearly 250 year old frame. Conveniently a co-worker was building a post beam house referred to as a “California Post and Beam”. His contractor was using something called “Stress Skin” from Atlas Industries to sheath the frame. This appeared to me, and still does, to be the best and most practical way to cover my frame.

I was aware of the potential moisture problems that could occur in a super insulated house. I purchased an air/heat exchanger but somehow never got around to installing it.

So, in spite of some clear danger signs along the way it remained a problem waiting for another day to be dealt with.

Fast forward to 2019 it became obvious we had a problem. Besides having some water dripping out from behind the ridge beam (stained a dark red) and a few other warning signs we now had screws on the 18 year old metal roof rusting off and falling to the ground. Inside, ceiling seams began to crack and many showed staining from the decaying OSB. A few panels began settling, closely conform to the 230 year old purlins which by their nature had a bit of a bow in them. This created large disturbing gaps between the panels. I clearly had a major problem on my hands.

So after contracting a gentleman to inspect the roof and replace the screws we immediately found the screws would not back out nor would new screws bite in to the OSB roofing deck below. Removing several metal roof panels revealed the extent of the problem and it was very bad.

So began my search and planning to repair the roof.

I read with great interest, finding it to be the singular most useful document, Alan Pooles “A SIP Roof Repair in Wisconsin” in Green Building Advisor.

I ignored the naysayers, being a pragmatic person with an engineering background I studied Alan’s project and everything else I could find about repairing SIP panels. Plenty of opinions that this was futile and the panels must be replaced did not deter me from formulating a plan using Alans experience, my own ideas and those of some friends experienced with post and beam.

His plan involved stripping the bad OSB from the SIP panels, leaving the foam and inside OSB intact. Well I had another wrinkle, the inside layer is sheet rock, not OSB. So I could expect even less support for the crew and materials on the roof while the panels were at their most defenseless. I decided it was a risk worth taking.

So what I came up with is essentially Mr. Pooles approach with a few big improvements.

I had a few big concerns. Would the rotten OSB, or the OSB that was intact prove easy to remove and leave the foam intact? I spoke with a number of people who had been involved in such projects years ago, or knew of some that did. Universally they all indicated that it would come off easily, much more so than you might think. It did!

In hindsight the OSB was poorly glued right from the factory. This turned out to be a blessing.

Second, would the SIP panels, with the OSB removed, be able to support the crew and materials as the work was done? Much to my pleasant surprise, the crew of up to 5 people scurried about the “naked” roof without any ill effects to the panels – no visible deflection, damage to the foam or anything. Its worth noting the crew tried to walk on the new 2x4’s for to minimize the stress on the foam, but this turned out to be unnecessary and was mostly abandoned as we gained confidence.

Finding a contractor now that I had a handle on the scope of the job, I needed a competent qualified contractor. I’d already compiled a big list from all the road side roofing contractor signs. The majority of these, I and spoke to dozens, could not handle the job. They were either not grasping the requirements, did not have an adequate and reliable crew or just too small and new to handle it. So I realized I needed to step up the game and look at more established and larger contractrors.

Enter Home Roofing Solutions of Etna Maine. Perusing the websites of a few contractors that specialized in roof repair I noticed Home Roofing Solutions projects included some more advanced projects similar in scale and scope to what I had. After meeting with their rep and a follow up call with the owner Joe Brasslet I was thrilled to find not only did Joe grasp the project and was familiar with the problem he was willing to take on the job. This was after he researched problem and remedies with his own network of suppliers and contractors. No one else took the time to do this!

The Plan:

So what we did was:

1) remove the metal roof in sections.

2) Strip the OSB from the roof. We found that the damaged OSB scraped off easily with a stiff broom. Intact OSB, and the majority was intact, popped off easily in whole pieces (4’x16’).

3) Brush the foam to remove the residual red glue that was left behind on the foam. This came off easily with a stiff broom/brush and removing the glue was a wise idea to help adhesion of the new panels

4) Install 2x4 “sleepers” vertically into the foam at 2’ intervals. We initially tried to use a foam hot knife to cut the 2x4 recesses in to the foam, but that was a disaster! The knife we used (see picture) was not compatible at all with the “green” foam that made of the panels. Instead of just cutting the foam it turned it into a toxic super smoky mess that was unsafe and very dangerous.

So on to plan b:

5) We quickly fabricated a tool to cut the recess using some scrap wood and aluminum. The blade would have been better as steel but time was short and the crew was waiting so I bent up and sharpened as best I could an aluminum blade. It worked perfectly! The crew adopted it immediately (and added the own guide marks to the tool). I soon made a second tool which was helped production even more. Very happy with my home made tool!

6) We let in (recessed) a 2x4 x 16 (well actually it required a bit longer so we had to use 2 pieces, the only disappointing compromise I had to make). Before be installing, we laid a heavy bead of PL300 in the recessed slot. This assured the 2x4 sleeper would secure itself to the foam.

7) Next we used 8” head lock timber screws to secure the sleepers at 5 points – 1 into each of the 3 purlins and 1 into the ridge beam and the top plate (beam) of the side walls. This had an immediate and measurable effect of snugging up the SIP panels to the purlins which was a good thing!

8) Then, the exposed and prepared foam was sprayed with a foam to wood adhesive (specifically Advantech). Using the spray foam adhesive was much easier and far more effective than using the PL 300 at this point in the process.

9) The original seams between the panels were marked with a patch of yellow spray paint, so we’d know where they were after installing the new sleeper 2x4’s. We just needed a small shot of paint for this purpose.

10) Next step, and this is another detour from Mr Pooles approach is we placed the 4x8 sheets of Advantech horizontally across the panels. Care was taken to arrange the panels so no seams landed on top of the underlying panel seems (using the yellow paint). In this way every original seam between the SIP panels was bridged with new sheething. This created a visible and perceptible major strengthening of the roof. It would be superior to what we had when the roof was new!

11) The Advantech sheething was then nailed to the 2x4 sleepers.

12) Another deviation from the old plan was to also screw the 8” timber screws through the new sheathing directly down in to the purlins and rafters where ever possible. This was a bit difficult as in the old frame some of the purlins had a bit of a “dog leg” in them making it hard to blindly hit the frame. The awesome crew managed to do this with much accuracy! A few that missed and made through the sheetrock have been cut off with a bolt cutter and dabbed with paint – no one will ever know.

13) The crew then proceeded to re-roof the entire house (not all of it utilizes SIP’s) with standing seam metal roof and completed this in about 3 days.

The original panel contactor did not spline or seal the seams between panels on the outside surface of the roof (inside was properly splined). This too was a blessing as we did not have to deal with removing rotten splines.

Using the head lock timber screws to first secure the 2x4 sleepers, then through the sheathing into the frame along with copious amounts of glue (PL 300) and spray foam glue made the roof extremely strong and secure.

This entire repair process took 4 short days (due to the project taking place in late October).

We did not find a need to place any weights on the new sheathing. Using 7/16” sheathing to match the original SIPs, the material laid down perfectly but the addition of 8” screws through the sheathing and foam to the underlying frame sealed the deal.

One thing you might notice from the pictures (see below), because 2 of our 4 bays were less than 8’ wide I decided to layout the new OSB so that they were stacked up, without staggering the seams, over the full width of the 7 ½’ bay. This allowed us to bridge the old vertical seam between the panels, greatly increasing the support. Where the other 2 bays are wider than 8’ and would require multiple panels horizontally we made sure that all new sheathing was laid out to span the old panel seams.

Repairs: 

There was significant rot and damage to the OSB and the ridge and rake areas. The Home Roofing Solution crew adeptly repaired these.

The original OSB was badly damaged, though I would estimate 50% appeared intact or repairable. The original plan was to remove all OSB regardless of condition if possible and this worked out perfectly.

The crew was incredible:

I can’t give enough credit to the staff and crew from Home Roofing Solutions! Positive, fearless and super competent! They even worked well past sunset, under lights to get the job done!

The results:

So in hindsight don’t let the doom sayers get you down. We now have a roof that is far stronger and more moisture proof than the original. And with the right contractor, it turned out not to be that big a deal.

But, but, but some will say what about the moisture problem? Well knowing that, adding a “cold roof” to our existing old (almost 300 years now) frame was not an option. So we have embarked on a major moisture control program. First thing I did was install ventilation directly from the shower to the outside. I found a typical 4” venting arrangement inadequate. So using a 6” high volume grow room fan I created my own system that now draws all the moisture laden air from the bath room. I coupled this with a timer and using the 20 minute setting we found this fan to be the single most important addition to moisture mitigation.

I’m also finally installing the air exchanger. This has been waiting for 30 years, due to life and the complexities of routing the ductwork.