Temp roof cover.

[Brandon Whitmore]

I have a buddy who has a fire and water restoration company.

We were discussing the fact that it is impossible to tear apart homes in the winter now that the weather has turned (roof's need torn off, etc.).

He's got 2 jobs he is sitting on. One house needs to be about half re- built from a fire. On the other job, a large tree fell on a home and he has to cut the home in half so the foundation/ structure can be replaced, etc. (jacking up half of the home).

There is pretty much no way to work on these homes because it will be raining for months with no end in sight.

I am thinking that there has to be some type of a temporary roof cover that can be constructed over an entire home in order to work on a structure in the fall/ winter.

I did quite a bit of Googling with no luck. Has anyone seen anything that could work, or have any design ideas?

There's pretty much no way I am the first to come up with this idea, and there is probably something that'll work out there right now..........

Any ideas?

[Brandon Whitmore]

Something like this on a much smaller scale. Say for a single level ranch.....

http://www.chawtonhouse.org/house/popups/roof.html

Or something like this without the walls, but on a much larger scale.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/ ... _200148624

The problem is that the structure will need to be up for a couple of months and resist wind uplift, etc. (no snow load issues here), yet fairly easily movable.

[Richard Moore]

We had a house on our block that had a 2nd story added early this year. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos but they basically built a skeleton of scaffolding to a height greater than what would be the finished new roof and then wrapped the whole thing with white plastic. I hesitate to call them tarps because the end result almost looked shrink-wrapped. I don't know how they got it as tight as they did. Anyway, over the next few months they removed the old roof and built the second story including new roof, windows, siding, paint, etc all hidden and protected from the weather within this "wrap". It was quite the "reveal" when the plastic came down.

As I said, I'm not sure of the exact method they used but it didn't look like rocket science. Maybe your guy should talk to some remodelling companies?

[Brandon Whitmore]

Thanks Richard. I did find one website that mentioned scaffolding type system, but there were no pictures.

Was it like this? http://www.midcornwallscaffolding.co.uk/ http://www.alsscaffolding.co.uk/services.htm

It's a start....

Any idea how long it took them to set up the scaffolding system?

[Richard Moore]

No, not really. It looked more like a huge white tent.

As for how long it took...it almost seemed like one day it wasn't there and the next it was...almost. My recollection is that I remember seeing scaffolding going up one day and wondering why it needed to be so high and the next thing was this huge white "blob". It's towards the other end of the block so I wasn't viewing it constantly.

If you want, I could probably get the name of the construction company for you (Senility...don't remember that either!).

[Brandon Whitmore]

Thank you sir.

I appreciate the info./ help. I already have a call into a scaffold company in OR that does this sort of thing.

[Richard Moore]

Originally posted by Richard Moore

I hesitate to call them tarps because the end result almost looked shrink-wrapped.

I did a google on wrapped sacffolding and it seems that shrink wrapping actually is available and I gotta believe that was what was used on this particular house. I'm bummed I didn't take photos now.

Here's a link to a UK how-to pdf, but the system is in use here too. http://www.scaffoldwrap.com/7ScaffoldWr ... rocess.pdf

[Bain]

That Tufcoat is pretty amazing, Rich. I've never seen anything like it.

In my area, blue-tarp is the method of choice. When the remnants of Ike blew through a few weeks ago, tarps on one house blew off onto the neighbor's house, and were sorta wrapped in place by the wind. Imagine what the neighbor thought with the gusts howling around him and, through every window on one side of the house, nothing could be seen but deep blue.

[Bill Kibbel]

Originally posted by Brandon Whitmore

I am thinking that there has to be some type of a temporary roof cover that can be constructed over an entire home in order to work on a structure in the fall/ winter.

It's called a clear span construction tent. They're not all that rare. I was in one that was at the max width of 160' !

[Brandon Whitmore]

And there I was thinking I was gonna invent something.

Thanks for posting that last site Richard-- I'm using it tomorrow to show the owner of the fire/ water restoration company. You must be a google master, because I didn't find that one. I was lucky to find pictures.

The price I was quoted to cover a house on flat ground is around $2500 for set up/ take down, and about $1000 per month for scaffolding rental.....

[Jim Katen]

An old friend of mine ran away from home when he was a teenager and joined the circus. He eventually became assistant canvas boss. He could've erected a large tent over one of those houses and secured it in place well enough to resist all but the worst of our winter storms.

Perhaps you should get in touch with some circus folk.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[hausdok]

Here

OT - OF!!!

M.

[StevenT]

The white plastic you are talking about that looks like shrink wrap, is shrink wrap.

Pass any boat yard in the winter and you will see it covering boats. There are lots of accessories that are available, such as vents, zipper doors, etc. It come in big rolls and can be joined together.

The gun to shrink it ties onto a propane tank.

Try this link or search "shrink wrap for boats."

www.shrink-wrap-film.com

Now all you need to do is construct the frame.

You can also use a tarp, like I did. Home Depot sells some pretty large ones and they're alot cheaper than shrink wrap. Another reason I prefer the tarps is that you can cover/uncover it as much as often as you want, if you shrink wrap it, it is too much of a process to recover it at the end of each day.

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Although I don't have a picture of it, I even had it covered after the trusses were up.

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[randynavarro]

I agree: either circus folks or operations that erect a tent in half a day for a huge car or RV event in some abandoned parking lot. Those things are amazing and I see them everywhere.

A house isn't that big. . .