Specific Requirements - Old Roofs and Odd Gutters

How many valleys, hips, points, dormers, flat spots, indents, and ridges can one roof have?

If you are interested in fixing up an old house, take it from me and think about this question before you are in too deep, find it's too steep, or you are up to your neck with ropes and harnesses.

I've discussed some exterior issues of our old house rehab in previous posts.  However,  the most important aspect of this rehab is the roof.  It was leaking, of course... in multiple places.  And, it is the absolute most expensive fix we face.

Although we did find a hole in the roof that that had been hidden by a large tree limb, we were lucky in that there were no squirrels or raccoons living in the house, or, worse yet, the dreaded tree or citrus rat!

The indents I mentioned in the intro are internal gutters.  They don't hang on the edge of the house.  They are built into the roof slope and are boxes made of wood, usually with some kind of metal liner. In our case liners were aluminum and some kind of coating and membrane in turret gutters. You can see the shiny aluminum up from the roof edge in the photo below.

Aluminum expands and contracts considerably with temperature changes. This house is in Florida where it is often in the 90's and has winter temps into the 30's.  Aluminum was certainly a better choice than wood and it lasted many years.  Slowly the expansion and contraction caused seals to crack and holes to form, water to drip down onto the wood boxes and rafter tails below.  Water made its way down and out via rotting soffits.  Aluminum can't be soldiered.

This photo shows new 40 year slate look shingles on the turret and a white gutter box membrane, still in great shape, that was under some kind of thicker coating.  A new Miami Dade approved Tropical Use charcoal color coating will be applied over the white membrane to match the shingles. It is used on flat roofs with parapet walls and in this situation flat gutter floor with walls.  It can be reapplied over itself many times.

The gutter box of the turret is made of hundreds of tiny triangle shaped pieces of wood.  To do this in a metal liner is labor cost prohibitive.

The white sheet metal flat area between turret and chimney will be covered with the dark colored coating as well.  Much care is being taken to prevent metal reactions with different metals in contact with each other.  The coating will be used in these situations.

To get this project started, we talked to local folks, researched local roofers, talked with lots of roofers, consulted with historic folks who know about this stuff, researched roofing materials, did our homework on various metal liners, and found a reputable skilled contractor via word of mouth.

Edwin Griffis of Central State Construction has been a life saver for this old house.  He already had an excellent reputation in the area and he wasn't shy about learning and researching and finding the best materials for this complicated roof.  He found out everything he could on the best way to deal with the roof and odd gutter system.  At first we were going to do stainless steel in the linear gutters -the very best material for this type gutter but also the hardest to install and get right.

Edwin found a local metal fabricator who had been making custom gutters in the historic district for years, Todd Robinson.  Todd had lots of ideas and suggestions for this particular roof and would only work with copper.  He knew how difficult stainless steel would be to get right.  It is too hard to soldier and soldiered joints are far superior to folded ones.  A stainless solder that loosens is a hole very hard to fix in place.

So, they covered the gutter boxes while we wait for the fabrication of the better local solution and best long term approach for this particular situation - copper liners custom made to fit the wood boxes.