Time to Start Installing the Tiny House Roof!
Because we were building under a tarp that kept filling with water, we rushed into installing the tiny house roof. This was so over our heads! Pardon the pun ;P The plans we had gave us a good idea of what was needed but we needed more depth for the 6" of insulation that was desired. We did a bunch of research and came up with a solution. BTW, researching things for this tiny house build took up SOOOO much time, if you thinking of building your own be ready to sit in front a computer quite a bit.
Bird mouth cut for roof rafters We decided to use birds mouth cuts on the 2x6 roof rafters. We thought this would be quickest method that would meet our needs but the quick part was very wrong. Each side of the boards had a different angle that needed to be figured out first. Fun maths ensued and we came up with depths and angles that were just about perfect, if only our walls were that accurate... Our big mistake here was not creating a jig to mark and cut each angle and depth, so all the rafters came out slightly different.
1x2 spacer boards required for insulating the roof We attached 1x2 spacer boards to each of the tiny house roof rafters to give the required air gap for the roof insulation. We got an amazing deal on some Tech Shield foil coated OSB paneling that we used to sheath the tiny house. Really this stuff should only be used on the roof, which we found out later while doing more research. Oh well, live and learn.
All the roof rafters installed Each roof rafter was glued to the top plate and fasteners were used on each end to secure them in place. To help access the rafters more easily, the bedroom and storage lofts were framed. Because our walls were a bit... unique from not supporting the middle of the trailer, the bedroom loft framing turned out slightly uneven. A detail not noticed until the interior siding was going up.
Installing roof insulation 6 inch rockwool insulation was carefully installed in between each rafter, this gives the roof an R-23 insulation rating. Much better than the R-13 that the plans we bought were going to give us. While rockwool is not as nasty to work with as fiberglass insulation, it is still pretty bad and caused some angry itchy moments.
We did get a couple nice days while installing the tiny house roof Installing the tiny house roof went fairly smoothly, especially compared to everything else up to this point. We did have some issues with rain filling up the tarp in section of roof that did not have rafters yet, though got lucky that it never spilled into the house. Read the full article