A House in Minneapolis Gets a New Roof

Well, to be strictly accurate, many houses in Minneapolis have gotten new roofs this past summer. But if I were being completely honest, I don't care about the vast majority of those houses. I care most about one little house—mine.

Here are a couple photos of the new-roof-putting-on process (I believe that's what professional roof installer technicians call this kind of project).

Every good new-roof-putting-on project calls for the right materials.

Dad starts to remove the old roof.

And this is what it looks like after the old rubber roof has been removed.

We added these 2x2s to the roof deck to provide clearance so the new roof could be ventilated. This should clear up some of my problems with icicles and ice dams.

On top of the 2x2s we installed a new roof deck of OSB.

Daniel demonstrates the strength that made him an award-winning member of the Wheaton Thunder football team. He's holding on his back a 200+ lb. roll of rubber roofing. I'm honestly not sure how we would have gotten this onto the roof without him.

And here's the new rubber roof being glued down to the new roof deck.

Now for the other side. This plane of the roof is pitched so it'll get shingles (after we add the new roof deck). Note the new OSB sheeting toward the bottom of the roof. That was a repair I made a few years back when I discovered that several years of ice dams had almost completely rotted away the roof boards and rafters.

After the new deck was installed, we started putting on the new shingles.

This fun little project is the side porch, and was supposed to be a quick part of the roof project. Instead, the existing roof was so rotted away that we had to remove it completely and rebuild the roof. I'm pleased to say that it's probably the most solid part of my entire house.

As you can see, I had excellent, dedicated help. These two were tireless on the project.

Here I am, trying to look impressive and rooferly.

"Build a little fire," I told Daniel. "Make sure it doesn't get out of control," I told him. "Don't take your eyes off it." I'm not sure why, but something about Daniel and fire makes me a little uneasy...

Now, I know what you're all thinking at this point. "Why didn't I get a chance to work on Ben's roof?" And never fear, there's more than enough roof to go around. I'll be working on the front roof (the side that faces the street) and the back roof (over the kitchen) this fall. I'm sure I'll need to establish a lottery system to deal with the intense clamor of wannabe professional roof installer technicians showing up at my door to work on this new-roof-putting-on project.