Building Gypsy Rose

Compared with the standing seam roof on Gypsy Rose, the metal roof on the equipment shed was quick and easy.

We had purchased the roofing material from Michiana Building Supplies months earlier. (That was back in the day of wishful thinking that we’d have the building up by early summer.) Michiana cut the panels to length (19-foot 10-inches and 8-foot 6-inches) and delivered them from their Rome, NY facility. The truck they were shipped on, however, was 75 feet long. There was no way to bring such a rig within miles of this job site. Instead, I’d arranged to take delivery at a truck stop near a main highway, 16 miles away. I strapped 15-foot-long timbers to the racks of my kayak trailer, forming a platform to carry the roofing. The trucker was very accommodating and the transfer was straight forward.

The roofing we used is ABC Roofing’s Imperial Rib model – a 26 gauge unpainted galvalume material. It is installed using external fasteners - self-drilling screws with neoprene washers. Care must be taken to get the first panels perfectly aligned so that subsequent panels run square with the building. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of driving hundreds of screws at regular intervals. I’d designed the roof width to use eleven full-width panels so there was no panel cutting required.

In order to reach the peak to install the ridge cap I used the same technique that I use for cleaning the chimney on Gypsy Rose. A ladder, padded with closed cell foam to prevent damage to the roof, is supported by the front end loader on the tractor. A step ladder gets me from ground level to the ladder base.

The total time required to install the roof was 21 hours. Once completed, we enjoyed the simple pleasure of listening to rain plinking down on a “tin” roof.