Don't get me wrong, we love our metal roof. Ever since we put it on the house 10 years ago there have been no worries about snow overload or ice dams. The only drawback has been the front porch. Every time the avalanche of snow comes off the roof we know that getting it off the porch is the next task. When the snow slides off and then drops 8 feet to the porch it lands with such force that we end up with a solid snow pack right in front of the door. It can be a real challenge to get it shoveled off sometimes depending on how much has come off of the roof occasionally requiring the ice scrapper.
Since November has blessed us with some nice warm days I decided at the last minute that it would be really nice to have a roof over the porch so that we didn't have to mess with the snow pack this winter. I sat down one Friday evening and wrote up my supply list and Saturday headed up to the lumber yard. My hubby was at work so I got started on my own. Let me just say that 4 x 4 pressure treated posts are not light especially with a bit of a wind.
Once the posts were in place and braced, which was fun to get plumb and braced by myself, I put the brackets on top of each post to hold the headers. I built the headers to extend past the front post about 6 inches in order to keep the snow and rain off the edge of the porch. These were heavy when I got finished sandwiching plywood between 2 x 6 lumber. When my Sweetie got home from work we had just enough daylight to get the headers screwed in place.
The next step was to cut and install the rafters. It is fairly simple to figure pitch if that is all you need but I needed to have the peak of the roof with the strapping and metal fall under the edge of the existing house roof. Since we have used metal for a number of projects on the homestead I had a scrap that I could measure depth and get an idea of how far down from the house roof edge I needed the ridge board to be. From there I figured what I need for angle and where I needed the crows foot to be cut in order to have the 6 inch overhang.
It took me the best part of the afternoon to get the rafters in place.
After that the strapping to screw the metal to was put in place. We were now ready to measure for the metal pieces. We are fortunate to have a local lumberyard that cuts metal to specifications. My husband Ken had stopped on one of his days off and picked up the ridge piece so I could us it for measurement purposes but now we needed the roof metal. The order was placed and in a day picked up and ready for installation. The pieces were only 55 inches long which makes them fairly easy to work with. When we put the metal roof on the barn we were working with some pieces that we 10 feet long. It can be a real challenge with long pieces if you have any wind at all.
So Ken and I installed the metal together. Putting metal up is not a part of this project that you really want to do by yourself especially when you are high on a ladder. In our case though we used the tractor bucket for a work platform. It really works well. Either Ken lifted me and I screwed down metal or I lifted Ken and he screwed down the ridge piece. We make a pretty good team.
A couple of additional notes. I used screws for the entire constructions. Someday we might put a small addition on that side of the house and besides being much stronger than using nails it is also easier to take apart and reuse the materials. I did add additional bracing on each rafter section to tie each side together and support the ridge beam. We have left the bracing in place for the winter. Next spring I will add railings to the porch which will give additional strength to the structure. However with that said our uncle who is a licensed Structural Engineer said it would hold the snow no problem. It does look a bit rustic without soffits of a fascia but that suits our style.