No rake, old boards under roof deck, window installed temporarily
With my last update, I had gotten as far as one side of the “rake” on the front gable, the frame under the edge of the roof that sticks out from the front of the house. Because I have 10′ boards, the one side wasn’t the whole length of the roof line, since the whole thing is close to 15′. Because of this, I hadn’t gotten the attic window installed, since it needs to have the exterior rigid foam around it first, and I needed the rake to be able to measure and cut the foam properly.
For the second stage of the process I needed to handle the ladder, since the bay is under the one side of the roof, and we’ve recently put a peaked roof on it. It probably would have been smarter to do the rake before the bay roof, but that didn’t happen. Oh well; I never pretended my planning was perfect. I rigged up the ladder at a shallow angle so that it matched the roof line of the bay, screwing boards both behind the edges, over the top of the feet, and as bracing on the bay roof itself so it couldn’t slide off. Finally, I stuck a board under the ladder to account for the top ladder section being a few inches up from the bottom.
I pre-assembled the rakes inside. With that done I cut back the original boards that run perpendicular to the rafters. These needed to be cut back flush to the front wall so that I could fit the rakes tight against the house. I mostly did this with a reciprocating saw, but in a couple of spots I used the oscillating tool. I attached some scrap wood to each rake as a hanger, so that I could get it into position and screw it in without having to hold it up at the same time, especially because they’re heavy, I was standing on a ladder, and I only have two arms.
I measured and cut the angled pieces for the ends out of 2×8, since my intention was for the rake to end at the eave with a point with no corner structure. Dean pointed out after the fact that I needed to account for the rigid foam that will go on the sides of the house, which I didn’t do. I’m wondering, since I need to extend the eave structure out two inches as well, if I can’t just transition that. We’ll see; worst case I redo the ends. With the rakes done I cut the foam for the gable peak and around the attic window. Then normal window installation commenced with flashing tape, drain pan, and a ton of frustration getting the installation brackets onto the window, which is also normal.
My next project was the front window of the second story bay. I’d saved it for last since that’s how we’d been getting onto the ceiling of the porch. I yanked out the giant existing window, re-framed, re-sheathed, house wrapped, took a break from window to remove much of the porch ceiling decking and railing we’d put up for the other projects. Bringing 4×8 sheets of plywood in through the window opening is much easier than lowering it down a ladder.
As with the attic, normal window installation took place, with one exception: when it came time to install the window, I installed more scrap wood on the outside of the opening to allow the window to slide beyond the edge of the opening but not fall out. This allowed me to attach the brackets without so much difficulty. It wasn’t crucial to the front window, where I can stand on the porch roof right in front of it, but this technique will help me on the remaining windows, particularly along the side of the house where there isn’t much room to work and I’ll be up a ladder. This way I can put the window in from the inside, then attach the brackets from the outside.
I’ll take down the rest of the railings and ceiling decking soon, when I go to tackle the porch roof itself. For now, I have all the materials I need to install windows, so I’m going to work on that. I’ll need some more lumber for the porch roof, even though I already bought everything a while back. That’s kind of how it goes when you cannibalize your own lumber.