any roofers with advice to share

SDE · Sep 27, 2017

My girl friends trailer house has a pitched, shingled roof that needs to be replaced. She has water damage in the trailer. I believe that the problem is the the roof does not have any over hang or eves on it. The water must be getting into the walls at the very top, at the roof line. How can I add overhang to it? My thought is to screw furring strips to the top of the wall and put 2" drip edge over it. This would give us an overhang of over 1.5" and get the water 2" below the top of the wall. Does anyone have a better idea they will share with me?
Thank you
SDE

tomtinker · Sep 27, 2017

Put on a metal roof and let it hang over a little.

showcrop · Sep 27, 2017

At my church where I am custodian, I noticed one day that the way the roof was installed, that the new gutters that we had put on over three entrances were not catching any water. Closer examination revealed that the water was not dripping off the shingles, which extended barely 1/8 inch beyond the drip edge, but was instead pulling in under the shingle and under the drip edge and running down behind the new gutters. To remedy the situation I cut strips of flashing three inches wide and pushed them up under the shingles, with one inch showing. The flashing solved the problem. What you need to do is extend your roof material, whatever it is, to force the water to drip from the roof edge and not pull back under. Set a step ladder next to the house, then next time it is raining run up and take a look.

centash · Sep 27, 2017

Frame a roof over top, then you will have an overhang plus a greater pitch less prone to leaking. Ben

chuck machinist · Sep 27, 2017

Centash hit the nail on the head

Stephen Newell · Sep 27, 2017

Because of transportation they can't put much of an overhang on a mobile home. If you are redoing the roof it would make more sense to put a more conventional roof on it. Now probably isn't the time of year to do it unless you are going to hire a contractor to do it. The old roof would need to be stripped off completely first and is a sizable project for the diy which would take quite a while. A dry season would be better. It wouldn't matter for a contractor. They would come in with six to eight people and get it done in a couple days.

The problem with the roof may be it may not have enough slope for shingles. If you don't want to change the appearance of the trailer in this situation they make a self sealing waterproof membrane you can put on the deck before the shingles. It replaces the felt paper. It's like a 3' wide sheet or rubber with sticky on one side you roll it out like tape. HD sells one called Weatherlock flex Flexible Self Sealing Ice and water shield barrier.

showcrop · Sep 27, 2017

Pitched shingled roof tells me that it already has a framed shingled roof over it.

Sean Feeney · Sep 27, 2017

agree

grandpa Love · Sep 27, 2017

Take off old shingles!! Lay down the membrane material. Then a metal roof with a couple inches of over hang. When the rubber washer gives up on tin screws the membrane will prevent leaks

john in la · Sep 27, 2017

If the roof is like everyone I have seen it will have trusses in the roof covered by OSB.
Most likely has a vaulted ceiling.
It should have a over hang of about 2 inches over the end of the wall.
On the fascia of this over hand should be a board that comes down up to about 12 inches.
Between this fascia board and the walls board should be honeycomb soffit vent.

With no over hang at all I can not see how they would provide soffit vents so I think it is as I have described.
What will happen is the roof will leak and the water will run down the back side of the ceiling and into the wall.

The stuff they use in place of tar paper is very brittle and breaks up under the heat of a roof so all you have is the shingles for protection.

If it were mine I would forget the extra work of adding over hangs and just rip the entire roof off down to the OSB (shingles; so called tar paper; and drip edge) and install a new roof.
The reason I suggest ripping the old shingles off is so that you can use a good tar paper this time.

Crazy Horse · Sep 27, 2017

Yes, water will actually run uphill for a while under the shingles if the overhang is "not enough" (overhang or slope). Lots of good suggestions below. If it has a vaulted ceiling inside, soffiting would not be necessary or effective (I don't think) if the vaulted ceiling spaces between the ceiling rafters were insulated. If the ceiling inside though is a flat ceiling, there would be an attic space of some kind I think, and lack of soffiting on the building's perimeter would mean little or no attic ventilation, unless it were vented on the end walls of a gable roof.

CGID · Sep 27, 2017

Water's surface tension may pull the water back under your furring strip. The surface tension can even pull water up hill; how far depends on the angle and texture of the roof material. Using a table saw or circular saw, run a groove the length of the furring strip about 3/8 inch from the outer edge. The edge of the grove will stop the water and it will drip off at that point. Wooden window sills used to have a similar groove to keep water from backing up under the sill.

old · Sep 27, 2017

I agree with Grandpa I would take the shingles off and use metal roofing with an over hang. With metal you can get a 3 plus inch overhang with out adding any wood

Hay hay hay · Sep 27, 2017

I have a mobile home for my farm workers. I am very cautious about big guys walking around on that roof. They are just not framed as rugged as a house. Mobile homes are not built with overhangs, but usually have a sealed seam where the metal roof comes down over the siding. Can you slide a piece of flashing under the edge of the shingles (a version of drip edge) or even slide drip edge under the existing shingles to create an overhang of sorts?

ss55 · Sep 27, 2017

A friend built a stand alone roof over the mobile home he used at a lake site. He sunk poles along side the trailer, installed rafters and a metal roof. The trailer does not support that roof and air can circulate above the trailer. That ended his problems with the trailer roof leaking, and it reduced his air conditioning costs.

At some point, it becomes less expensive to replace a mobile home than to repair it.

SDE · Sep 27, 2017

That is correct. I think it is even a conventional pitch(4-12?). Half of the trailer has vaulted ceilings.

SDE · Sep 27, 2017

My brother did that with his house and added additional insulation over the old roof. I helped with it and I gave that some thought as to how that would fix this problem, but to add a second roof over the old roof, just to add some overhang, seem like a lot of work and money.
TY
SDE

SDE · Sep 27, 2017

Without an adequate space between the ceiling and the roof, we believe that metal will be to loud during a hard down pour. I will check to see if the membrane that you are talking about will deaden the sound enough.
TY
SDE

SDE · Sep 27, 2017

We do intended to remove the shingles. By now we are expecting that some of the decking will need to be replaced. My fear is that after I have re placed the shingles, that the original problem will not have been fixed.
TY
SDE

SDE · Sep 27, 2017

I really don't think that the trailer park owner would allow that.
She has told more than once that she made a mistake buying this trailer. But a little old lady owned it. How bad could it be.

Donald Lehman · Sep 27, 2017

Put the metal roof on with a 2-3 inch overhang and be done with it. Use the painted 30 year stuff, too.

TomH in PA · Sep 27, 2017

"metal will be to loud during a hard down pour"

Is that really a problem? Hard downpours don't happen all that often or last very long. Plus the thunder will wake you up anyway.

farmerjohn · Sep 27, 2017

I always liked the sound of rain on the roof.

showcrop · Sep 27, 2017

(quoted from post at 13:46:03 09/27/17) That is correct. I think it is even a conventional pitch(4-12?). Half of the trailer has vaulted ceilings.

So, knowing that it is a conventional roof, and it needs reproofing anyway, If you just put a new drip edge on it and extend it out an additional inch or two you will keep the surface tension of the water from being able to pull the water onto the original top of the wall.

Hay hay hay · Sep 28, 2017

Showcrop, would iceguard under the edges of new roof and under the drip edge help? I know they do that on conventional
roofs.

showcrop · Sep 28, 2017

(quoted from post at 01:01:40 09/28/17) Showcrop, would iceguard under the edges of new roof and under the drip edge help? I know they do that on conventional
roofs.

First let me reaffirm that SDE's GF's roof is conventional.I believe that you are asking about what is called ice and water shield up here in the north. It has been very popular for probably 30 years. When snow melts on a roof the water runs down under the snow, and drips off at the eaves when the temp is above freezing. When the temp is lower, yet inadequate attic insulation/venting causes the snow to keep melting, when the water gets to the overhang, where there is no warmth underneath, it freezes. This continues and an "Ice dam " is formed. Water backs up behind it until it finally goes up over the top of the shingles. The Ice and water shield provides a sealing membrane which prevents the water from getting through. In the south it would be very unlikely for ice dams to form, so I would not see it happening. The solution to SDE's situation is to form a positive drip edge a little way away from the side of he house.

WGM · Sep 28, 2017

Metal roofing belongs on trailers. Shingles belong on houses. Can't get any more simpler.

showcrop · Sep 28, 2017

(quoted from post at 17:55:40 09/28/17) Metal roofing belongs on trailers. Shingles belong on houses. Can't get any more simpler.

Simple is not always good. The metal roof people would disagree with you fairly vigorously, LOL.

old · Sep 28, 2017

WRONG now days metal roofing is on many stick built houses and it has a 40 year warranty where as shingles have maybe 25 year tops

BarnyardEngineering · Sep 29, 2017

Asphalt shingles these days are pure GARBAGE. EPA has limited the amount of actual asphalt that can be used in them, so they fall apart in half the time of old shingles.

10-15 years is all you can reasonably expect, and the warranty is a joke. You might get a couple hundred dollars because it is heavily "prorated." Usually it's just void because it was "installed incorrectly by the contractor."

You can get steel roofing these days to look like any roofing material you want, and has no exposed fasteners so there are no rubber washers to degrade and leak. It's more than just "barn tin."

W_B · Sep 29, 2017

(quoted from post at 05:31:30 09/29/17) WRONG now days metal roofing is on many stick built houses and it has a 40 year warranty where as shingles have maybe 25 year tops

My roof is 70 years old and still going strong.... slate! The slates on the house were actually used on the house that originally sat on this site. It was built in the 1870's or '80s and my place was built in 1947. The owner/builder carefully removed the roof and checked each slate for cracks and had them installed on the new house. I've only had to have it worked on once, that was when a tree hit the roof and they replace about 100 of the slates (along with rebuilding the brick chimney).

any roofers with advice to share

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