Wednesday November 08 2006
Backfill: Up-to-Date Roof
Bennington, Vermont, is located at the southern edge of a historic slate-quarrying
region that stretches along more than 50 miles of the VermontNew York
state line. Slate roofs are common on older buildings of all kinds throughout
the area, so when Bennington businessman Duane Greenawalt decided to build a
timber-framed retail building patterned after a traditional dairy barn, he intended
to cover it with a distinctive slate roof.
But as the structure neared completion, Greenawalt realized that the project
budget couldn't be stretched to cover the cost of slate. Rather than give up
on his original vision, he hired local builder Tim Clark to create a decorative
slate-like roof with three-tab asphalt shingles.
To plot the initial layout, Clark had a draftsman with a local engineering firm
create a patterned grid with an AutoCad program. The first attempt, based on
modules representing full-sized shingles, was too crude. "The 2s looked like
the letter Z," Clark says. A second version, based on the sizes of individual
tabs, yielded smoother, better-looking curves. This change made it necessary
to cut single tabs from some of the shingles making up the letters, but because
it had no effect on the field shingles, it added relatively little labor.
The original concept called for using light gray numbers within the brown field
and black border, but Clark recommended a more subtle two-color approach. He
mocked up several options with colored pencil, Greenawalt agreed, and Clark
and a helper got to work.
Most of the eight-week project, Clark reports, was spent preparing the existing
SIPs deck for the new cold roof. This involved nailing down 2x4 sleepers, plywood,
and felt and installing the rake, eaves, and soffit trim. Before beginning to
shingle, Clark marked color transitions and other key reference lines with tightly
stretched nylon strings nailed to the deck.
Laying the 50 squares of shingles needed to cover both of the 83x30-foot roof
planes actually took less than two weeks and went off without a hitch, despite
the early onset of winter.
"As it got into December, we still had half the roof to shingle," Clark recalls.
"People started asking us if we'd have to change the date to 2003 if the weather
kept us from finishing by the end of the year." Despite some snowy days toward
the end, the job finished on time. In addition to serving as a landmark to motorists
driving along U.S. Route 7, the dated roof should also make it easy to tell
if the 20-year shingles live up to their rated life expectancy.
By Jon Vara
This article has been provided by www.jlconline.com. JLC-Online is produced by the editors and publishers of The Journal of Light Construction, a monthly magazine serving residential and light-commercial builders, remodelers, designers, and other trade professionals.
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