Roofing

With the weather starting to turn more northwest than usual I was highly motivated to get the roof finished up.  I decided to go with Ondura corrugated roofing for a number of reasons.  I liked that it was light weight, being made of recycled paper product with asphalt.  Also I liked that cutting it seemed like an easier endeavor, no tin snips or crazy sharp finger severing edges.  I also thought maybe the metal might be louder during rain storms.  I also read the metal corrugated can rust when scratched.  I don't know how long my paper roof will last but its paintable to hopefully extend its protective life.  The clincher was seeing how great the roof over at Tiny House Giant Journey looks.  Mine didn't go on quite as nicely but I'm ok with it.  I was so eager to get the roofage started I dragged a rather heavy roll of tar paper up onto my reasonably steep roof to get started.  Some of you may already see the stupidity of what I just said.  "Why drag the entire roll up on to a pitched roof?  What exactly were you thinking was going to happen when you got to the top of the ladder?"  Well shut up.  I figured it out eventually.  After cutting a length of workable length of paper I went to work stapling down the sheets.

Shortly before my fall

I would have thought that with a name like tar paper there would have been a level of tack.  My advice for the day is don't try and roof by yourself, but also don't assume stapled tar paper is a sturdy surface for standing on.  I now know how much a leg brace costs.  I got lucky with only a small fracture and a few sprains of the ACL and LCL when I fell in a very undignified heap after my tar paper slipped out from under me.

Technically after my fall.  To add more stupidity I worked the rest of the day on my injury.

Progress has been somewhat limited since then but due to a remarkably touching outpouring of support from my friends the roof was completed and we are on our way to getting the siding started before the weather gets even worse.  Thank you to all those who are making progress possible.

windows

I've been looking forward to installing my windows for a while.  I have had them since before I even had walls.  I went with the idea that it would be easier to frame around existing windows instead of the other way around.  After watching lots of install videos and consulting a number of my regular tiny house blogs I felt ready to give it a go.  I'm always a bit trepidation with any project which involves the potential of water leakage and obviously the windows was a big possibility for disaster.  I'm not going to explain the process because its already been done so much better than I can.  After the first window I thought the process was going to be a breeze, a little messy with the caulking, but easier than I thought.  Then I went inside to test the window operation and realized I forgot to center the window and ended up with uneven gags to either side.  I filled in the gaps with expanding window sealant foam.  I don't know if that's what you are suppose to do but I did it anyway.  The next window I layed down the flashing, put the bead of caulking and hoisted the window into place only to discover it wouldn't fit.   I had forgotten to dry fit the window, well I guess before that I forgot to double check my framing.  I had to tear out the flashing and some of the housewrap with it, then I used a sander and reciprocating saw to carve out a slightly bigger opening until the window fit.  This was definitely not an elegant operation and the window fits so snugly now that I'm worried that during road travel or swelling the window might crack.  Time will tell.  The rest of the windows were some combination of complication with none of them being perfect but they look windowy so I'm calling it good.  The rain since install hasn't shown any leaks.

roof sheathing

This is where things started to definitely get sketchy in the safety department.  I don't have a great track record for doing the smart or safe thing when it comes to working solo and this was no exception.  Those pieces of plywood are large and heavy.  I used half inch plywood in 4x8 foot sections.   Because the house is 16 feet long and I allowed a bit of an overhang at the front and back of the house two pieces of plywood was insufficient so I staggered as best I could trying to remember this time to let the seams fall on the rafter studs.  I was a tiny bit unclear on what to do with the ridgeline.  Should the plywood touch at the crown or not?  I went with not quite touching.  Gluing the sheets into place was exciting.  I knew if i tried to glue all the rafters and drop the plywood onto it I would be faced with trying to muscle the 4x8 foot section up the ladder and hope it fell where I wanted it to go.  Instead I slowly dragged it up the ladder, pushed it into place, screwed in a couple of brace boards so it wouldn't slide off the roof, then propped up the high end so I could squeeze the glue between the rafter and the plywood and then removed the brace so it fell less of a distance and I had more control.  I don't know if this was easier or not but it seemed to work ok.  For the smaller pieces I balanced myself on the already glued and screwed plywood and trusted to the worn out tread on my hiking boots to keep me in place while I placed the plywood.  Then I caulked the hell out of the seams.  I got a bit of rain shortly after and it did leak a bit but I just added a bunch more caulk.  My advice of the day is to buy liquid nails and caulk in bulk as you will use all of it and then some.  

tyvek

For some reason I opted for the 9 foot tall roll of Tyvek Housewrap.  I think it comes in shorter rolls but since I normally work alone the 9 foot roll seemed the most difficult to work with solo and since I don't seem to do anything the easy way it was a no brainer to get the monster roll.  Fortunately for me I had help, Thanks Duc!, and although awkward we got the whole house wrapped in an afternoon.  We had one person hold the roll at the bottom of the trailer/plywood edge with me up on the ladder guiding the unrolling and stapling as we go.  I guess we could have stapled on end, unrolled to the other end of the wall, straightened it and then stapled but we didn't so deal with it.  I used staples instead of the nails with the plastic washer heads because I had staples on hand.  Then I taped all the seams with the Tyvek tape to seal out moisture.  The whole process was a tiny bit easier than most of my building endeavors although I still wasn't able to avoid all the wrinkles.