Tiny House Roof Shout!
Our tiny house roof is on! In conventional builds, the completion of the roof is a time for celebration because it usually signals the completion of a water tight building envelope or getting to ‘lock up’ stage. For us, due to the delays in getting our windows in from Canada, our roof is on but we still haven’t installed the joinery. Not too much of a drama though, especially since our joinery is all ready to go and will be the next job to complete. Being a bit sheltered while we work on the joinery doesn’t hurt either, especially during these winter months (why do we always end up trying to build things over winter!!!).
After originally planning to have a steel frame roof, we discovered that between cavity, thermal break & insulation requirements – we would have gone over height. So it was back to the drawing board and off to find a lower profile alternative. Enter SIPs roofing. With everything all built into a single span of roofing, we could fit exterior roofing, structural components, insulation & our ceiling into a single 107mm thick panel. As an added bonus, our R value also increased up to 4 and the work up high could be done much quicker.
Our panels are PIR core with pre-painted zinc aluminium steel coating from Conqueror in Christchurch. With some flexibility around colour, it was only 3 weeks from order to delivery. The colour we ended up with on the inside was what we wanted anyway (Titania) and we got Gull Grey on the exterior. We probably would have gone with Titania both sides given the choice but there isn’t really much difference & we can’t see our roof anyway! The panels weigh about 30-40 kg each and have a T Rib style profile on the outside and a slightly grooved profile on the inside.
The interior joins actually make it look a little like negative detail which we quite like. The panels were attached to the framing by some very impressive looking screws and then attached to each other by a much smaller screw. Being strong structurally, they can span 4.3 m without support which is far more than the 2.9m width of our building.
Getting the panels up on the roof given their weight plus the height of the tiny house was always going to be a challenge for just the two of us. We came up with a reasonable system though and with the help of our walkway & loft floors managed to get the panels into position reasonably easily. At least until the last panel. The more panels we put up, the less space we had to move the remaining panels into position. The last panel (luckily smaller & lighter than a full size panel) had to be maneuvered out through the gap after taking down some of the loft wall framing in order to get the panel on the right angle.
As far as roof construction goes, we did find these easier & quicker than a conventional timber roof with the added bonus of a pre-finished ceiling. Although we have since given it a fresh coat of paint due to some small transport and installation scratches.
So would we do anything differently? No, not really. Perhaps tweak our installation method so that the last panel was easier to install and measure the panels before installing them. They were all slightly different lengths which we did not realise until we were part way through.
Once the exterior cladding was also finished, we added the roof flashings and guttering. The flashings were custom fabricated by a local company which we definitely recommend instead of trying to buy standard products. It was quick, easy and the results were great. We have a a couple of small leaks in the panel joins where the connecting screws were not sealed properly but those have been easily fixed
