Re-roofing a garden shed

Factual Questions
1

I need to replace a roof on my garden shed but I really don’t have any idea how to do it.

Anyone have any good links? Google didn’t give me anything I could really use. Lowe’s and Homedepot’s websites weren’t the answer, either.

The shed is just a 6’ x 8’ shed with 6 pieces of plywood on it. On top of the plywood there looks to be maybe some roofing felt and then the actual roofing material (whole sheets for each piece of plywood; not individual shingles).

I’ll get 6 new sheets of plywood and whatever roofing material I’d need, but what after that? Is there anything I’d need to do other than just nail the felt to the plywood and by driving the nails through the plywood nail the plywood to the roof trusses and then nail the roofing material to the plywood on top of that? As I indicated above, the outer layer is just a single sheet of stuff, not shingles. I’d like to stick with that if I can.

Do I need any kind of roofing tar to secure this?

I’m hoping this is actually really simple to do…

2

Here is a site with instructions on roll roofing.

You generally install the plywood before any roofing material.

3

Well, this all depends on the material you want to use for the roof.

Asphalt shingles? And if shingles, full length, or three tab?
Half-Lap? (roll roofing.)
Metal?
Ceramic?
Cedar?
Slate?

Each one has it’s pros and cons. For a shed, I would stay away from ceramic and slate, too expensive and work intensive, and the only real benefit of those is aestetics. Half-lap is the kind of stuff you would need roofing tar for. It comes in a large roll. You spread some tar, roll it out, and nail it down. Each layer goes over the top half of the previous layer, kinda like a giant shingle. This is probably not a good choice for a shed, as it is best for long, skinny, roofs, like a porch.

Shingles or metal are your best bet. Metal is easiest to install, just cut the piece to the right length (Hell, if you’re lucky, they might come in that length already) and nail it into place. You might not even need to replace the plywood, check out the site justwannano linked to, it’s under panel roofing.

Shingles are the best overall compromise of price, quality, look, and durability. They take a little longer to install thal roll roofing or metal, but look nicer than either one, and generally last at least as long as metal, if not longer, and much longer than roll roofing (most shingles come with a 20-30 year warrenty.) Of course, shingles usually need roofing felt underneath, adding a little to the cost and time. This stuff is basically waterproof paper that you roll out and nail onto the plywood to give another layer of protection under the shingles.

You say it’s 6’ x 8’, yet uses 6 pieces of plywood? Your standerd piece of plywood is 4’x8’. Is the roof peaked, or are they non-standerd or cut pieces? Either way (peaked roof or flat) how is it arranged? If it is peaked, and has a steep grade, it might be tricky to roof it.

I would say that since it’s a small shed, metal is actually the best option for you. It’s pretty easy to install, not terribly expensive, and does the job pretty well.

4

I would go with asphalt shingles. easier to apply. If the ply-wood decking is not in bad shape you don’t have to replace it, nor will you have to remove the present roofing if it is fairly flat and stable. Measure your roof area, shingles come in bundles of 1/3 square, a square is 100 square feet, add enough for your starter course and for your ridge. Lowes and Home depot should have a knowledgeble salesman to help you out, maybe hiding in back.

5

The only tricky part about shingles is getting them to stay lines up. The fail-safe method is to measure out each shingle, five inches should stick out (I think five…it’s been two years since I’ve done this.) A better way is to just eyeball a few rows (well, not completly eyeball, there are tabs you line up, but the are not perfect.) then snap a chaulkine and follow that to get back on track. The measure the chaulk line, see hoe many rows you have, add one more for the row you are doing, and then multiply that by five, and measure that far up from the bottom of the roof, and snap a line across that whole height, and line up the next row with that line. Hopefully, it won’t be too far off.

Also, if you aren’t using the three tab variety, then you need to make starters and finishers so the neds look nice. This part is also a little trciky, so I recomend using the three tab kind, since you just start at one side, go to the end, cut off the remainder. For the next row, just stagger it so the groves from the previous row are in the middle of the tab of the current row.

Oh, and to make the job go quicker, nail three or four rows across at a time. Get the first row out four shingles, the next one up three, then two, then one. Make sure to keep the bottom ones ahead of the top ones, as sometimes you forget and have to remove the top ones, since the nails from the top rows go into the row below them as well.

For more advice, see if your local Home Depot or Lowes has one of those free courses in roofing.