Tommy and Bryce braved the heat recently to put on our galvalume metal roof. We only get to do this a few times a year, so it’s always satisfying to be up in the air, above the trees while bending and crimping metal.

We used the 26 gauge Advantage Lok roofing pan by Union Corrugating, which we get from Better Living. This mimics the look of a true standing seam, but it actually snaps and locks on the previous piece rather than getting field hemmed together. I would love to be putting on a true standing seam, but I have yet to find anybody that will sell me the pans. (Most roofing companies in town make their own pans and are generally interested only in making pans for jobs that they are going to install). Still, the Advantage Lok pans meet Miami Dade County’s rigid code for uplift in a hurricane zone, and we still get the fun of field hemming the eaves and rake of all pans.

I get all of my eave, rake drip edge, two-part non-exposed fastener ridge vent, and metal plumbing vent boots bent at Martin Roofing in town. I could get a lot of this from Union Corrugating, but since the trim detail is a bit more specific and complicated, I prefer to get it local in case I run short or have an issue. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to go into Martin Roofing’s shop and work with Neil on figuring everything out.

The big change for us on this roof is that we are actually not doing a conditioned attic like we have usually been doing, but are going the route of the more traditional vented attic (with soffit and ridge vents). We started going with the conditioned attic space and spraying the underside of the roof deck with open cell foam as we were running duct work up in that space and it’s obviously not efficient to run cool air conditioned air in a hot attic. For this house, we went with the traditional vented attic for two reasons:

1) We have no HVAC in the attic

2) Going with a 6/12 gable roof is a lot more roof area than the simple 3/12 shed roofs that we have doing, so it would take a lot more insulation on the underside of the sheathing. Plus, our Passive House modeling calls for R60 insulation in the ceiling, which is just prohibitively expensive for us in spray foam. But, achieving this with blown cellulose (recycled newspaper) is very affordable. Plus, since we already ran a plywood taped air barrier on the 2nd floor ceiling, we don’t need the air sealing qualities that spray foam would provide.

We also made sure to put all of our plumbing vents on the north side of the gable roof as Joey has been diligently investigating the possibility of a solar thermal hot-water system and/or a grid tied photo-voltaic system. Stay tuned…