Building sofits/ extending rafters

[mrcaptainbob]

You know, Umby, it's just my opinion. I think ridge venting looks best if carried right to the roof edge. Even if there's an overhang and the venting isn't really 'venting'. Passing by new construction with that ridge vent that stops 3' shy of the edge and then does a sweep down to the normal ridge just is not very aesthetic to me. Worse is when it's on a roof that has several ridges.....Just my $0.02.

[mrcaptainbob]

And anyway..if you go at something electrical the way you're handling this carpentry stuff, you'll do fine. Especially with the helpers on this forum!

[Umby]

I agree with the full ridge vent. I stopped short on both ends on my shed because "that's how its done". I never like the way it looked.

Regarding the "helpers" out there: I owe you all big thanks. Especially the Captain, we seem to think the same. To the moderators and the owners of the site, I thank you as well. I've dump a lot of stuff on this thread and although disk space is cheap it isn't free. The way see it is the only way I can pay you folks back is by reporting what happened with your advice. Nobody seems to that on the forums I have read. So expect more pix!

[Umby]

Finally got back to work on it... Putting in late hours at work has killed my ambition to go out and work on this, but intend on finishing it 'soon'. Boxed in the end rafters with false rafters nailed onto two lookouts nailed onto the end rafter tails (see below). I did this on both ends. Then nailed up the 2x6 subfacia acrossed all rafter ends. Hopefully tonight I can simply nail up the 1x6 vinyl facsia and I'll be ready for drip edge and shingles. I was wondering if I should tack up a triangle-shaped piece of 2x6 to the very end of the rafters to create a level underside in preparation for the finish siding? The drawing is way out of scale, my roof is a 4-12 slope, so the piece of triangle 2x6 would actually be like 20" long (level) and 2" high (up the exterior wall).

[mrcaptainbob]

Makes ense that the work load would increase for you since the weather's been so nice for this project! Soon as that load slacks off, the rains'll come! They are scheduled for us in the next few days, by the way. That pic looks good to me, Umby. There's not much you can do with that end except what you're doing. Since you'll be having some of the original siding from where you removed it for the soffits, that'll make good filler for that and match right up with the siding that there. If you'd like, you could carefully snip away some of that vertical corner trim and ease your triangle shaped material to fit in with the existing siding lines. What you do need is some J molding to trim out that triangle and to coincide with the stuff coming down the gable.

[Umby]

Finished nailing up the vinyl fascia board and finished tacking the that small 4.5" strip to the top of the 2x6 sub-fascia. Here is shot of the West section. If you look close you can see the ends of both the sub- and the vinyl fascias. It's kind of screwed up over there. You'll see the end/false rafter is higher than all of the rest and the next one in is lower than all of the rest! So the difference between just those two is significant (ugly). I think if I do that triange mentioned earlier, things will look better (before they are completely covered up anyways).



Here is the Eastern section. I used the vinyl fascia on the outside of the last/false rafter so you can't see the sub-fascia. Lots of donkey-kicks because of fading light and persistent mosquitoes. I believe I am now ready for the drip-edge and shingles (after one month of doing this!).

[mrcaptainbob]

That looks great, Umby! I was wondering how you were fairing with this. I was in Warren last Saturday, in between raindrops. Most of the day was good, though. You've been lucky with the weather. Hope it holds out a bit longer for you. Good progress.....

[Umby]

Thanks Cap'n! I'm moving again and actually made decent progress on Sunday (8/21). (My wife says if it takes more than six weeks, it's not a project, it's a hobby...)
I nailed up the drip-edge on all three sides and by the end of the day I shingled all the way up to the old shingles (about 9 courses, 14' wide), but I did not nail the last course in yet. I have shingled roofs before, but only about once every ten years; so I had to think long and hard about how to do this! I also forgot how easy it is to nail them, but cutting, carrying, hoisting, etc. is very tiring. This morning, I felt like I had played rugby. I'll post the pix of the drip edges and the unfinshed roof (as of 5 courses), but I'll end with my newest problem, and hence I need your advice again.

These first pix are of our famous end rafters with their drip-edges. This first one is the western most rafter. You'll see I reused the old drip-edge on the right side of the image running up the roof. This drip-edge used to be the one I (inadvisedly) pounded on to rid myself of ice dams. Because my new drip-edge does not have the same profile as my old ones, I had to use this old piece to mate-up with the old existing drip-edge coming down the gable. Wasn't sure how to join them in the corner, so I got a little creative... It worked out ok.

Then the eastern most rafter.

And from above (These side drip-edges have a lot more nails in them later on from the shingles) Note the mess up at the top of the image; stay tuned.

Here's the roof after five course. If you look closely, just underneath the gray tarp, you'll see the old shingles that I am advancing towards. Then if you look at the right side of the roof deck, you'll see that vertically, I lined the new shingles up with old ones, wich was easy to do. But horizontally, things won't be that nice. This was expected even before I got into this hobby.

Now here's one of the few problems I am running into:

As you can see, I have come up almost 50% out of alignment with the existing shingles. And there are no less then six layers of existing shingles in that valley at the top of the last image. Farther up the roof, this layer count drops to four.
Should I:
1. Go under ALL the existing shingles with the new ones (very ugly)
2. Go under ONLY the top layer of existing shingles (bumpy ugly)
3. Or both, i.e. put up multiple layers.
I am tempted to go with option #3. It was only three bundles to finish the first layer. And I now know exactly what my offset dimensions are. This would mean I would finish nailing down the final course at the top and at the edges, underneath all of the existing shingles. Then, starting at the bottom of the roof with the second layer; cut the first course of shingles almost in half *horizontally*, and advance on up placing the new ones under the first layer of old ones. Whatchya think?

[mrcaptainbob]

The parting of the ways.....you're no going to like me or this....(#4) I'd take it all off on both sides of that valley right up to the ridge. My reasoning(s): appearance, too many layers already, a chance to lay in the proper icedam in that valley, more work than money at this point. THe roof on the other side of the ridge doesn't have to 'blend' with this side. Not right away, anyway. Too much great work (and time) invested to not go the rest.

[Umby]

I agree with you, that would be the right thing to do. But remember: this is a patch job. To do a full tear-off and re-shingle of those two decks is not something I have the time to do or the money to have done; especially with the historically rainy month of Sep. coming up. Well before going into to this I knew there would be an asthetics issue with the blending of the shingles. I knew it and the only other person in the world who can see it, my neighbor, knew it. The second picture up in this thread of the whole work area was taken from in his yard near the top of an 8-ft step ladder. I.e the pitch of that roof makes this project area hard to see. And let's face it, four to seven layers of shingles, bad sheathing, lack of ice barriers elsewhere, etc.; the whole roof needs to be done anyway. This is only a temporary fix for what was the worst ice dam on the entire roof, one of at least three. Sorry Cap'n, respectfully sir, option #4 is a non-starter for me!