Emerald Green

"Our" Mike, "Little" Mike and Nate showed up this morning and worked throughout the day on the garage roof, in anticipation of having the shingles installed. Mike said he thought it would take him a week to prepare the sunroom for shingling. The garage is starting to look like a roof.

The supply company delivered the foam insulation for the sunroom along with the retaining hardware. We had the 1x6 pine boards and thermal barrier boards delivered last week. Since we decided not to use the tongue-in-groove siding that Mike originally suggested, he has decided to install biscuit joints on the exposed sunroom roof boards to keep them from deflecting and gaping due to the distances between the sunroom trusses (32"). Sounds like a good idea as opposed to just hoping for the best. The other option would be to install dowels. Not sure why he chose the biscuits versus the dowels. From what I can find, the dowels provide a stronger joint, but are more expensive. We may not be needing a strong joint, but one that just keeps the boards aligned. The sunroom roof will consist of a internal layer of 1x6 pine board with two 2" layers of foam and a 1/2" thick thermal barrier board. All of this secured with 7" screws to the trusses. The asphalt shingles will go on top of the thermal board. We don't know what the "R" value of the sunroom roof will be, but I assume it will be higher than the windows.

Thermal Barrier Board

Foam

With the shingle installation coming soon, it was necessary to make a final decision on the color. T was leaving for a week long trip to Texas this afternoon, so we traveled over to the supply company before she left to verify which color of asphalt shingle we would put on the new roofs as well as on the main house. T selected the GAF Slateline Emerald Green. She also confirmed she was OK with the samples of the slate provided to us a couple of weeks ago on the new gables and for needed repairs on the main house gables. I relayed all of this in an email to Mike and he acknowledge receiving it.

We are deferring the final selection of the cupolas for now. We believe we will want to go with a larger size on the garage than what Tyler had premised. Tyler had premised a 36" cupola on both the sunroom and the garage. This may be OK for the sunroom, but seems too small for the garage. The rule of thumb seems to be that the cupola should be 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" per foot of unbroken roof line. With the 40 foot garage roof line, that would mean a cupola between 50" and 60". It has also suggested that we could consider putting two cupolas on the garage. We need to be careful about getting carried away with this as, at some point, it may impact the number of solar panels we can put on the garage roof. While we are deferring the decision for now, we need to make it soon so that the solar portion of the project is not delayed.

We have also been exploring the best approach for installing forced ventilation through the cupolas. I have received several responses to the inquiries I sent out last week about installing a fan in manufactured cupolas. The responses have ranged from "it cannot be done" to "sure, no problem, for a price". One of the most interesting was one which suggested installing a normal exhaust fan on the roof and then mounting the cupola over it. Interestingly, Mike told me that he had talk with Frank (HVAC) and Frank had recommended the same approach. Something to explore.

Mike said he would be back tomorrow to continue work. I know he would like to get the roofs on and shingled over the next week or so. The forecast for the upcoming week is much cooler than we have had for the past two weeks. Other than a chance of rain this weekend, the chance of precipitation during the work week remains low.