Library builder

Fiber-cement siding has been around a long time. The first house I worked on in the late 1940s was covered with fiber — cement siding. It was a bit brittle but just about indestruc­tible. It fell out of favor because it was hard to work with and full of asbestos, whereas high-quality wood siding was […]

It’s not difficult to understand the popularity of vinyl siding. It’s affordable, widely available, fairly easy to install, and maintenance-free. A drawback is that it takes time to learn how to install the vinyl trim pieces that go around doors, windows, and under eaves. Another disadvantage is that in some areas, like the Northwest, vinyl […]

Windows, Doors, Siding, and Exterior Trim Each phase of a homebuilding project offers a new set of challenges and rewards, but the work that we do in this chapter is especially exciting. The big, stick-framed box we’ve built is about to receive a beautiful skin, with windows and doors added to make it weatherproof. By […]

At the ridge, many builders install ridge shin­gles on the roof ends with a ridge vent between them. An alternative is to install the ridge vent across the entire roof, even though the ends of the vent (located over the gable-end overhangs) are not functional. Some ridge vents do not require a cap of roof […]

Use metal step flashing to waterproof the inter­section where a roof butts into a wall. Usually made from aluminum or copper, metal step flashing is bent to form a series of elongated, L-shaped pieces that are lapped over each other in successive shingle courses as well as upward along the wall. The step flashing we […]

When a porch roof intersects the main roof at a right angle, a valley is formed. Shingles can be laid across a valley in different ways. A woven valley is formed by weaving shingles across the valley, alternately overlapping from the main roof onto the porch roof, then vice versa. When properly done, a woven […]

Here in the West, we try to order shingles the day before they will be installed. Suppliers arrive with a hoist and stack both shingles and felt paper directly onto the roof. An experienced delivery per­son knows to stack bundles of shingles about 6 ft. apart on both sides of the roof. The other way […]

To obtain the right layout, try this two-step method: 1. Measure across the roof from outside edge to outside edge (parallel with the eave wall), including the planned overhang distance for the shingles. For example, let’s assume that the shingles will overhang the drip edge by 1/2 in. Measure in yards (because the length of […]

Determining the quantity of materials needed to cover and shingle a roof is rather easy. First, measure the roof to deter­mine its square footage. Add the width of both sides of the roof and multiply that number by the length of the roof. Let’s look at an example: A roof with an overall width of […]