Homestead · every building
The roofs
One roof on everything: black standing-seam steel, each panel one piece from eave to ridge, on a board deck. The solar array is clamped to the seams, so no bolt goes through the steel.
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The main block's roof runs on down over the lean-to as one catslide; the wing's dies into the main block's gable; three dormers stand on the wing's south slope. The walkway runs between the wing and the greenhouse, the outdoor kitchen's roof carried over its south slope on two valleys. The seams are drawn 16 in apart. The orange lines are snow fence, over the porches, the back path and the court.
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Steel on the greenhouse's insulated north roof, polycarbonate south of the ridge, a vented closure where they meet, and curbs for the two exhaust fans. The bath house's roof is fenced over the tub deck.
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The workshop's warm roof and the framing yard's open one, tucked under the workshop's rake. Two rows of snow fence over the overhead doors.
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28 modules in two pairs of rows, with an aisle between them where the propane boiler's vent comes up. They stand 18 in off the rake and the ridge, about 9 ft east of the wood boiler's chimney. Two rows of snow fence below them hold what slides off the glass before it reaches the woodshed's front.
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At a seam: each panel's 1¾-in snap-lock seam sits on a clip screwed into the deck. An S-5-S clamp grips the seam's side with set screws, carrying an L-foot and the array's rail, so the roof has no holes. At the eave: the panel's hem locks over a cleat and slides on it as the steel moves, and air for the vent gap comes in through a screened soffit. At the ridge: the deck stops short, the panels' ends turn up behind Z closures, and the vent gap's air leaves under the cap.
The steel
- 24-gauge steel, matte black, in 16-in panels with striated pans. A narrow pan, a heavy gauge and a matte finish are the makers' own answers to oil-canning, which a black roof shows more than any other colour.
- A board deck under every roof, pine from the same mills as the frame. On the open buildings, whose frames carry purlins, the boards run up the slope over them and make a wood ceiling that does not drip condensation.
- Each panel is pinned at the ridge and slides in its clips. A black panel's surface can reach about 180 °F, so the longest panel moves about ⅝ in between summer and winter (an estimate), and its hem takes that movement at the eave.
- Under it, a high-temperature underlayment: plastic, sealed away where no one touches it again. Felt softens and sticks under a hot dark panel. Wisconsin's dwelling code asks no ice barrier under metal; it sends a metal roof to its maker's instructions (SPS 321.28(5)).
- The warm roofs vent at the ridge: the house, the dormers, the workshop, the walkway and the bath house. The open roofs get a plain cap.
Snow
A black steel roof sheds its snow as one slab. The snow fence is a bar on seam clamps, adding no holes, and it goes where that slab would land on a door, a path, a lower roof, a gutter or the array's eave. Slopes over 20 ft get two rows. Everywhere else the snow falls where nobody walks. The rows' places wait on the maker's calculator at the code's 40 psf.
Still to settle
- For the engineer: the clamps' spacing on the array's rails under snow and wind at the rake, the board decks (the makers test over plywood), and the snow fence's load into the seams.
- For the maker: the clip spacing, the pinning, and a panel longer than most shops roll: the catslide's panels are made on site or shipped long.
- Penetrations to come: the plumbing vents and the radon stack, each in a high-temperature boot set in a pan, never on a seam.