Roofing Your Own Home

When faced with having to replace your roof, you may determine that it's too expensive for what you're able to afford. By not replacing the roof you may end up with bigger maintenance problems down the road, so it's best to not put if off. You may end up asking yourself what to do.

If you're in relatively good health and faced with this challenge, you might consider replacing your roof on your own. It is tough work, but with a little basic knowledge, it's pretty simple and can be accomplished by most handy home owners. Doing a good amount of research would be recommended, but in this article you can learn the basic steps of replacing your roof on your own.

The first thing you want to think about when replacing your roofing is the weather. You want to try and replace the roofing when you will have several days to do the work without a chance of rain. it's a good idea to have some plastic tarps ready in case it beings to rain unexpectedly. You can purchase the plastic tarps, leave it in the packaging and hope you don't have to use it. If you don't end up having to use it, you can return it to the store.

Once you have a few days, at least one person to help and you're pretty sure it won't rain, it's time to get the old roof off. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use some short, square shovels and get the tip of the shovel under the shingle. Then push down on the shovel handle, and lift the shingle up. It's a good idea to have two people removing the shingles and at least one on the ground to clean up the mess. This part of the process should go fairly quickly. When you're done getting the shingles up, you want to go over the entire roof with a fine tooth comb and pull up and nails you missed.

When you have a clean slate to work with, it's time to get the tar paper on. You'll want to have a staple gun with quarter inch staples for the job. Start with the bottom row and mark a caulk line 35 and 5/8 inches above the eves.

Use this as your starting point. Smooth out the tar paper as you lay it and leave a 6 inch overlap with each piece. Staple the paper every twelve inches. Once the paper is laid, it's time to lay the shingles. Start with the first layer and make a caulk line to mark the first row. Once you have a perfectly strait first row, you can move on to the other rows, overlapping half the shingle per row. After laying all the shingles, you can lay the edging and then you're done! Congratulations on installing your new roofing.