The theme of projects that expand to other larger projects continues. In the case of my latest undertaking, a large project has expanded into a truly ponderous endeavor.
When I set out to fix the roof of the shed, I could tell that it had a slight sag at the roofline. I honestly didn’t appreciate the significance of this until I was waist deep in shingles and tar paper.
Taking off the shingles was no problem; maybe a little more time-consuming than I had anticipated, but pretty easy. This part of the job should have been the first hint that I was getting into something bigger. As I removed the ridge shingles at the top of the shed, there were ants scattering and carrying their young larvae along with them. At the time, I didn’t know that these were carpenter ants.
Next came the plywood sheathing. I was prepared to remove this from the start. I had already purchased 16 8X4 panels because I could tell by looking at the edges of the roof that the OSB boards were damaged by water. Removing these revealed lots of insect and water damage to the roof structure. There were piles of “frass” from carpenter ants excavating homes in the roof structure.
I called an exterminator to stop the damage from getting any worse, but I still had lots of damage assessment ahead of me.
Yesterday, I finally had all the sheathing off and the trim boards were removed as well. The tail ends of the rafters that hang over the walls were mostly rotten and so I needed a strategy to either re-enforce them or replace them.
My brother Coby stepped in to help. Together, we raised the ridge beam with house jacks (and floor jacks), and came up with a plan for fixing the rafters. We would remove them one-by-one and replace them, refitting them to the ridge beam, securing them to the wall plates and hopefully, when we lower the jacks, everything will hold up, more-or-less.
By the end of today, it was raining lightly. I have seen geese flying overhead as I try to build an entirely new roof for the shed before the cold and wet autumn kicks in fully. We stretched a massive tarp over the ribcage as we finished for the night. It won’t hold forever, so I need to keep at it.
Coby and I anticipate getting some new lumber, tools and fasteners, and putting the rest of the rafters in place tomorrow.