Cross posted from the energy forum: So, I have a 1.5 story 1920 home in Minneapolis, with two bedrooms upstairs. The current roof is shingles that are a light-medium gray installed over the original roof deck (boards). It may soon be time to replace the roof and I am curious about using energy star roofing due to summer heat gain. The house has blown in cellulous insulation in the area above the upstairs ceiling. In the attic spaces there is open cell foam on the roof deck. Much of the ceiling is sloped, so there are 2×4 rafters with the cellulous and then the plaster ceiling. The house has forced air with AC, but the duct routing to the upstairs is a bit convoluted due to the retrofit, resulting in fairly low flow to the upstairs. In the summer it gets a bit warm up there due to the low air flow and the heat gain from the roof doesn’t help. So, I was thinking as long as I was going to replace the roof, energy-star shingles might help a bit… What I would really like to do is put some foam boards above the existing roof deck, install plywood over that, and then the shingles, but I have exposed rafter tails and I’m not sure how you could add all that thickness to the roof without making it look goofy. Any input? Thanks, Erik
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Replies
I'm currently considering the
I'm currently considering the same.
One thought - why not cut your existing tails off at the wall line? After building up with foam board, you can extend new tails out from the new height preserving the look without making your deck look thick.
I'm not sure I see how that
I'm not sure I see how that would solve the problem. Since there is no facia board right now, when you look at the edge of the roof it appears to be apx 1" or so thick (thickness of roof deck). If I added foam to the roof, it would be at least 2.75" thick (original deck+1" XPS+3/4" plywood). I suppose you could put some sort of trim on the edge?
Perhaps I don't understand you correctly?
Thanks
Erik
You don't need to insulate
You don't need to insulate the deck that extends beyond the edge of the house. You would cut off your existing tails, then extend new faux tails out from where your new top layer exists, so the would now start of 2" higher than where they are now.
Instead of cutting them off, you could also just add depth to the top of them as well... a ripped 2"thick board on top of your exposed rafters would make the exposed rafters just a bit taller and preserve the basic look.