Sunday, December 18, 2016

Roof logistics

Getting up and around the treehouse to put up the rafters and roofing led to some "contemplation." Since the roof tilted only 40deg or so from vertical, I really didn't want to be climbing around up there unprotected. That meant that I wanted to be able to assemble the roof as much as possible from inside the treehouse. Up on a step-ladder if at all possible. With this in mind, I decided the simplest approach would be to use super light, 2-foot wide, corrugated polycarbonate panels for the roof. I was originally thinking of using sheathing with cedar shingles, but this would have required a lot of scrambling up on the roof. In contrast, the panels are fairly cheap, relatively nice looking, long-lasting, easily sourced from local big-box, and could be assembled one after the other from inside the treehouse (mostly). I had some visitors from the local squirrel family (who live in a near-by oak) come by to inspect my work (see photo).


The polycarbonate panels do require special screws that have a rubber element under the cap to keep it water-proof. Also they ideally need this plastic undulating snap-in support rail that rests on purlins (2x3's) which I had to put up orthogonally to the rafters...

 

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