My metal roof has no deck under it. is this normal?

14 years ago

We bought this house over 10 years ago, we were young and naive, apparently. It is a coastal cottage or key west style home- hardiplank siding with a metal roof. We live on the gulf coast- cold weather is never an issue, when you go in our attic and look up you see daylight. We have open eaves and no leaks but the metal is attached directly to the trusses. Now we want to sell the house and I am concerned it will not pass an inspection because of the roof. I think the house has hurricane straps so whoever built it did something right. Can anyone tell me if this is a usual practice. I know heat rises and our power bill is not astronomical even with the 14 year old insulation in the attic floor. Also, if it does need decking in order to pass an inspection, will the current roof have to be removed?

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Comments (6)

creek_side
14 years ago
Metal roofing doesn't need sheathing to keep the weather out. The metal panels can be fastened directly to the purlins, the horizontal boards that span the rafters. Hundreds of thousands of barns are built that way. That said, some jurisdictions required all residential roofs to be sheathed.

Check with your building inspector's office. If there was no sheathing requirement when the home was built, it is highly unlikely that it would be required upon sale.
lyfia
14 years ago
decking isn't required under a metal roof as creek_side mentioned.

Also it doesn't matter if code now requires decking as all that matter is what was required of code when it was built/installed so checking with your building inspector's office wouldn't do you much good.
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creek_side
14 years ago
Also it doesn't matter if code now requires decking as all that matter is what was required of code when it was built/installed so checking with your building inspector's office wouldn't do you much good.

I disagree. The building inspector's office can tell the OP if roof sheathing was or was not required when the house was constructed. Some jurisdictions do require it with all roofs.

The OP is in a hurricane area. Things tend to stricter there. It is possible, although unlikely, that the house may be required to brought up to current code (if it doesn't meet it now) upon transfer of title -- emphasize unlikely.

The building inspector is there and should be on top of this stuff. Why discourage the OP from contacting him?
flseadog
14 years ago
I'm not following the technicalities of this discussion but I do want to add a point for the OP to consider. We live in Florida and essentially the entire state is hurricane territory whether we are coastal or not. In the past few years insurance companies have been insisting that folks have a new roof installed just to have their insurance renewed. This has happened to at least 6 families I know who have had perfectly good, non-leaking roofs. Whether this will be an issue or not on a resale I have no idea. But I do know that this has become a real problem since the 2004 hurricane season.
brickeyee
14 years ago
"But I do know that this has become a real problem since the 2004 hurricane season."

There is not a lot holding a typical framed roof down except a few nails toed in through the rafter were it sits on the exterior wall.

Hurricane straps need to be added, along with actually following the correct nailing schedule on the roof decking.
albertb
14 years ago
You don't need decking here in Washington nor would you want it as it increases the risk of the roof rusting out prematurely. Unless things have changed, and they do. If it was done according to code at the time of installation then they will not require to take the roof off just to install decking.

My metal roof has no deck under it. is this normal?

Comments (6)

creek_side

lyfia

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