Exciting news! The roof of Dragonstone is complete! Woot!!!!
Steven and I worked on it over the past two weekends. Steven does the actual work on the roof, and I do ground support (getting him what he needs, picking up trash, telling stories for entertainment) and shingle cutting.
Two Saturdays ago, Steven finished installing all the shingles on the north side, and most on the south side, before we had to stop for rain.
Fun fact – there are 32 rows of shingles on each side!
On Sunday he finished the shingles on the south side. I went up and down the ladder many times getting shingles from him to cut to the exact length for the end of the rows.
south side to the left, north side to the right
After the shingles were are all on, he installed the zinc strips (the silver strips in the photo below) with a nail every two feet. We installed the zinc strips to prevent moss (and mold, etc.) growth on the roof. When it rains, metal particles roll down the roof from the strip. The metal is poisonous to moss, fungus, mold, and other types of plant life, and prevents it from thriving on the roof and leaving black spots… hopefully!
He also installed a hook in the middle of the roof to strap in to if he has to go up there after the roof is complete. He was going to install the ridge vent that day, but he didn’t have enough roof sealant. He went to Menards to get some, and the line was too long to get in, so he worked on other things in the garage (electrical??? probably).
Steven got roof sealant during the week so we could finish the roof this weekend. On Saturday he cut open the underlayment (and could immediately feel hot air escaping from Dragonstone!),
put down the sealant, and rolled out the ridge vent, pressing it in to the sealant, and nailing it in every five feet. The ridge vent (in black, below) allows air to escape through the peak of the roof.
After the ridge vent was on, he started installing the cap shingles.
He got 75% of the cap shingles installed and had to stop because he ran out of the longer nails he was using to nail through the cap shingles and ridge vent. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait to get in to Menards this time, and quickly got the nails and came back and completed it! Yay!
cap shingles with zinc strip underneath
completed roof!
We’re really excited the roof is done and Steven doesn’t have to get up there again (any time soon, cross your fingers)!
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Wow, that is one beautiful roof! Good job, Steven (and ground support Kim)!
Thank you!!!
Congratulations to you both for finishing the roof. It looks so professional! (And I had no idea about the zinc thing, thanks for sharing that.)
What’s up next for Dragonstone? Do you think you’ll do a celebration for when it’s officially finished?
Thank you! I didn’t know about the zinc thing either! We hope it works! But now we are like, will that mess up any water reclamation system we add later? Hmm.
So, Steven is doing all this power and lighting stuff inside. It’s still all plugged in to an extension cord we pull from the house garage, so we have to get actual power over in Dragonstone. We still need to do the siding, and have someone do the brick work. We need to have the rest of the driveway and sidewalk formed, then we’ll add radiant heating tubes, then they’ll pour concrete (and we’ll do our hand prints in it!!!). And that is it for this spring/summer season. There is more to do but we don’t have any money (insulation is very $$$ and required by our county if we want to even turn our radiant heating system on! At the moment, all we have in are the tubes – the system isn’t even set up). Very long answer!
We’d love to have a garage party! Or maybe just I would! So, when Illinois reopens in 2022, maybe we’ll do that 🙂
Beautiful! Congratulations – I am so impressed!
Thank you!!!
Color me impressed! I can’t believe he did the whole roof – with your support, of course! That’s fricken amazing.
I recently wrote an article for work about inspecting your home’s roof and was trying to figure out how people get ONTO a roof (sounds so dangerous!), and there were all these articles about how you should have an anchor on your roof that you can hook into while wearing a harness. And Steven installed one!!! Sometimes I read these articles and I’m like “do people even do that???” hahaha. These posts are fascinating to me because of all the home improvement articles I write!
Those ridge vents look FLY! 😉
Thank you! I am impressed and think he’s amazing too! He has such drive!
What did you find out about getting on (besides the harness)? We use the ladder and getting on doesn’t scare me but getting off freaks me the hell out, so I stay off 🙁
OMG, I love that you read that and now know someone who did it! I hope he uses it if he ever has to go back up there!
Woot, Owens Corning, baby 😉 hee hee