Let There be (a Velux 10") Light (Tube)

A few months ago, I picked up a Velux 10" light tube for our hallway. The hall has no windows, and since we usually keep our bedroom doors closed to keep the pets out, it's always dark. Even during the brightest part of the day we can't see if there are any dog toys on the floor. It's a painful problem - guess how I know this. Below is what it has looked like without the light turned on. Pardon the blury picture, the camera didn't like trying to get a pic in this low of light.




Step one of the install was determining where we were going to put the light tube. I cleared away what little insulation we have and marked the hole. I had to offset it slightly to make room for existing electrical wiring. Pay no attention to the crappy light fixture. It'll be replaced when we get around to renovating the hallway.




My biggest concern with this job was cutting a hole in my brand new roof. The flashing process is straight forward, but it's still a bit unnerving cutting a hole in the roof in an area which up until now has been watertight. In this picture, you can see the trim ring which is visible in the hallway and the polished tube connections at both ends. These ends rotate allowing you to line them up. In between will be a straight tube of polished metal.




From the outside, the light tube is pretty low-profile. Instead of using the standard felt that the instructions call for to help create a water-shed under the shingles, I used some left-over ice & water dam from the re-roofing. This material is thicker and has a sticky back. As you stick nails through it, it seals around the nails. From the road, this dome doesn't stand out anywhere near as much as I thought it would. Normally I would have put this on the back side of the house, but there wasn't enough open space due to a roof vent and plumbing vent. On the plus side of having it on the front of the house, it's got a southern exposure so the light tube brings in more light.




Once it was done, it brought in as much light as I had hoped. Here's the hallway with all lights turned off and no flash on the camera. Still not enough light in the camera's opinion, but good enough for me. Now we really get a good look at the crappy skid-mark brown carpet. The project took about 4 hours, and wasn't nearly as difficult as I had expected it to be.

I Love the Smell of Sawdust in the Afternoon. It Smells Like. . . . Victory.

After a week of hauling the old shingles, I'm finally done with that project. The roof still needs a little attention at the gutters and I still need to install the light tube, but the heavy work is done (finally). It still surprises me how much room the old shingles took up in the 20 yard dumpster. It's almost half-filled already! The trailer in the dumpster is what I used to move the shingles from the yard to the dumpster. Every effort was made to keep the debris as far forward and stacked as high as possible so I wouldn't be walking over nails. I also wanted to make sure I didn't waste room since I don't want to rent another dumpster any time soon. With the shingles done, it was time to destroy that crappy old shed.




Nate, these pictures are for you! The wood siding was in decent shape, but there was a lot of rot because the builder of this masterpiece didn't use pressure-treated wood. I started with the sledge hammer and knocked the siding off of two sides. The area with missing framing was heavily rotted and took almost no effort to remove. I was going to cut the shed into pieces, but found it was easier to just dismantle it with the sledge.




Here's why you should use pressure treated wood for the sill plates. The entire corner was rotted away and filled with bugs. It didn't help that the roof leaked heavily. I was surprised with how well the shed was built, but that they went stupid and used a flat roof and a swing-in door. The more I look at it, the more I think this wasn't really a shed, but more of a garden shed for potting plants. Size-wise, this shed would have been useless for lawnmowers or other lawn-care tools.




Did I mention the roof leaked? Black isn't a good color for roof supports. This beam was rotted, as were the ends of the roof decking which were above it.




Here, most of the roof has been taken apart except for the last bit which was above the shed door. The roof was covered with 4' x 4' shingles. Well, they weren't really shingles, but were made from the same material. There were plenty of nails holding the "shingles" in place, but none of them were caulked or covered in tar. The seams (and there were a LOT of seams on this roof) were also not caulked or tarred. Gee, I wonder why it leaked? Bad choice of roof design, no slope to the roof, and poor execution. This might have worked if they had used a one-piece rubber membrane of some type or at least slopped the whole roof with tar.

You Will be the First Against the Wall When the Revolution Comes

Days later, and I'm still schleping shingles from the yard into the dumpster. Who'd have known there were so many shingles on one roof?! The front, back, and one side are 100% done, leaving one small side to do tomorrow. The 20 yard dumpster is closing in on being 1/2 full - it's pretty much one solid mass of shingles now. If the old shingles weigh as much as the new ones, I'll probably end up with around 10,000 pounds of shingles in there (based on the weight of the 71 bundles which were just installed, coming in at around 5,400 pounds). The more time I spend in the backyard removing shingles (and lots and lots and lots of nails) the more I can't wait to get rid of the old shed which came with the house. It's got a swing-in door, meaning that about 1/3 of the room inside is wasted since you need to leave room for the door to open. It's also got a flat roof, which is pretty much the polar-opposite of a good idea here in Wisconsin. The 2 x 4 roof framing is rotting from years of leaks, and the thing is painted a wonderful shade of red which matches absolutely nothing else on our property. Well, that burning bush in front of it matches the shed for a few weeks a year, but that's not a good enough reason to keep it. After the shingles are all loaded up and we take a last sweep for nails, I'm going to break out Mr. Reciprocating Saw and cut that fvcker up. We'll be stuck with the old concrete pad from it until we get money to replace the patio, but at least we won't have an ugly shed 15' from the back door. Oh yeah, it was built 15' from the house instead of way back in the corner of the yard like normal people would do. When I look out one of our bedroom windows, the side of the shed is about 75% of my view. Nice....

WTF Moment of the Day

Alright, so the roof is done (except for cleanup, which will probably go on for a couple of weeks - yay...). Just in time, as we're getting some of the only rain we've seen in over a month. Not hard rain, but enough to wet things down a bit. I figure it's a good time to check things out in the attic, although a real hard-rain would be the best trial-by-fire for it. Below is typical of the 45 year old decking - nice and solid. I didn't mention it before, but there was absolutely no rot or noticeable water damage found during the roofing.




The previous owners, who had lived here at least 30 years, installed some wood decking which goes from the opening into the attic all the way to the garage where there is an access hatch as well. You can barely see it on the wall to the left. This is the first time I got a look into the attic and it was "interesting". I had wondered about the venting and where the stove and bathroom vents exited the house, which I now know. That's not what was "interesting", though. The "insulation" is what I'm referring to.




I don't know if it's "Yankee Ingenuity", just plain cheap, or the first signs of Alzheimer's, but the previous owners used old carpet and padding as insulation. Seriously, WTF?!? Over the living room is this egg-crate style padding surrounded by REAL pink insulation. Yeah, that'll work well.




Even higher on the Lame-o-Meter is this old carpet and pad which matches the carpet in the hallway and the bedroom we tore carpet out of. What I really like is how it has compressed the real insulation, thus ruining what little R-value it originally had. Most of the attic has at most 6-8" of insulation, nowhere near enough for Wisconsin. I had planned to blow in some insulation this fall, but didn't know I was going to have to remove carpeting from my freaking attic before I did so.



Before anybody asks, my home inspector did mention carpeting in the attic, but I thought me meant that they rolled some up and stored it in the attic, not that they actually tried to use it for insulation. I did look briefly while he was up there checking out the decking, but I didn't want to climb up there as I was still in my work clothes. I'm really interested in seeing how much easier the house is to heat & cool once this is done correctly. I'll have to check out the venting around the soffits when I do this to help the airflow. That should be loads of fun, so I'll wait until cool weather before I do it.

Roofing is Done, and Now Cleanup Sucks

By noon on day 4, the roof was done. My mad-purchazing-skillz served me well - I was only short 11 bundles of shingles (I was trying to get away without having any extra, but that backfired a little bit) and only used one of the two 20' ridge vents. I didn't see any reason in using the other roll, as I could have only used about 5' of it and would have wasted the other 15'. Might as well return it and get the $50 back. Most of my running for stuff on this job was for stuff like tubes of tar, ice, Gator Ade, etc. The roof is done, but that doesn't mean my work is done. Now comes the el-sucko job of clean-up. Usually people put down tarps to catch the debris from the roof, but since there were only two guys working (and our tarps suck), I had the debris dropped directly on the ground. It is easier to pick up with a pitchfork this way, though. My only concern will be nails which the rolling magnet doesn't get, I figure I'd have those either-way, so I'm going to hope for the best and pay the kids to use the magnet every few days.





Ah, sweet, sweet, ridge-vent goodness, how I've looked forward to having you. 20' of Owens Corning with the top shingled.




From the garage side of the house, the last side to be done.




Remember how I said that the previous colors on the roof might have faded a little? Well, make that "a LOT". I found this little gem mostly protected from the sun, and it shows that the second layer of shingles was actually RED! How freakin' ugly can you get! Red roof, brown and white trim, and tan brick. Yeah, that'll look good...

Shingle Blues

Since before we purchased the house, we knew it was going to need a new roof. From what we can tell, the house currently has two layers of shingles, meaning we really need to tear those off before installing new shingles. Today I spent some time after work cooking a rack of ribs, and got some time to inspect things a little more outside. There are some areas which are really in need, but the only leak I know of is in the garage. It only drips right in front of the garage door, so there is no additional damage being done at this time so it's not a 100% MUST-DO at this time, but it'll be done before summer really gets here (hopefully). How many roofs have I torn off and/or installed in my years of home renovation? Well, none. But I've also successfully done a lot of other things that I've never before done on my house. To add to the fun, the lawn is starting to come to life and it's twice as large as my previous lot. A 1/2 acre with a walk-behind mower should be good for me, although I'm not thrilled when I think of how much time it'll take.