My cousin's roof has only one layer of shingles that are about 15 years old. The shingles are in pretty poor shape in parts of the roof and are buckling up. In some cases the actual asphalt from the shingles is gone and just the back of the shingle is left. Can you put a new layer of shingles over this or would you tear off then install new? Thanks for any help!! RFW

My house is a rectangle with a gable roof. About 36' wide X 28' deep. I want to remove the front half of the roof entirely, rafters and all. I want to build a second story over the front half of the house. There is only one load bearing wall in the house. It runs all the way across the 36' width (down the middle of the house). The apex of the roof is directly above the load wall. Both sides of the roof rest on top of it. If I remove the entire front half of the roof, will the back half collapse? My guess is that I will need to create vertical supports for every rafter and run them straight down to the load bearing wall -- creating a new triangle. Problem is, once the vertical supports are in place, they will be in the way when I try to build the second story wall. Anyone ever seen something like this done before?