Our sunroom is about 20 years old here in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is a 4-season modular style sunroom made up of four-foot panels and is, in total, roughly 20 x 12 with windows along the three sides. The roof panels are about 4" thick and the ceiling has - to my knowledge - never leaked along the seams. (though it had leaked for a short while between where it meets the house)
We recently had the roof shingled over a plywood base, but the issue I am having precedes that.
One of the panels - at the seam - seems to be becoming disconnected from the adjacent panel. It is not leaking, but we are getting what appears to be a brown styrofoam kind of dust coming down from it.
It looks like they should just click together.... but they don't seem to.
Any thoughts on what I could do here, based on a knowledge of what I am working with and how these things fit together?
I assumed the skin on these panels would be aluminum, but one person who came over and tapped on it with his fingernails seems to think that, despite the places where it is corroding a bit, they might actually be plastic.
We were originally thinking to drywall over it, but it doesn't appear that there will be anything to affix strapping to. Even if we could just fasten it back into place that would be okay.
From what I'm seeing..... the outer covering is stamped metal..... probably aluminum.
They appear to interlock when installed.
I don't know how you'd slide them together now once they're installed.
You said you had the roof shingled over a plywood base.
Was the base installed over the existing roof ?
Typically this style of roof is not shingled.
I would use a block of wood & hammer and see if you can get the panels to snap back together.
No, I would not sheetrock. You've already added the weight of wood sheeting and shingles which it probably wasn't designed to carry. Adding sheetrock would be even more weight for it to support.
Look into the gap show in photos #1 and 2. What is the core of your ceiling? It is probably either foam or a paper honeycomb. When you push on the area in photo #3 how does it feel? Does the skin feel detached from the core or is it solid?
First, thank you both for your replies! I’m going to have to update my preferences so I get email notifications more than once a week. :-)
PJMax - yes, your description sounds like what kind of construction this is. The original roof that the plywood base was installed over was a metal sheeting.
Before we got the roofing put on, we had a leak where the sunroom attached to the main house structure. I went to a company called QSI who, around here, is kind of the gold standard for this kind of sunroom. They put shingles on plywood on their roofs all the time and even had some samples in their showroom like this. When I asked the roofing company about it - yes, a reputable one - they confirmed they have done those with no issues.
Hopefully they were not misleading me.
As for weight, I do want to be conscious of that, of course. I know that it is not terribly unusual to have a foot of snow on these roofs around here from time to time, but the weight of the snow plus the roofing plus hanging drywall on the underside is probably inadvisable. I can certainly see that. Not to mention that there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to affix drywall to anyways.
Pilot Dane - thank you too…. I can push the edge of the panel up so that it is flush with the neighbouring panel. The two parts just don’t seem to line up so as to snap or click together. Duct tape is almost enough to hold it. Almost. Not that that looks great. At least it’s white. Haha.
I’ve shone my flashlight into the gap but can’t really see anything - just what is shown in the first photo. I’m reluctant to pull it apart any further. The material that sprinkles down can best be described as brown cellular particles…. I would guess styrofoam dust. I don’t think it seems paper-like.
Pushing on the ceiling, it feels quite firm and solid, except of course for where the one panel is sagging.
I need to start putting things up on the walls in our new apartment we've moved to and a couple of light duty things were easy enough but I have to put up some shelves and things now that are 20 pounds and more and I feel like I need to have a better sense of what these walls are made of. I saw online that peeking behind a light switch could be useful but you'll see in the photos that it was hard to see much. Some other holes where cables pass were more telling.
Sadly I don't know a lot about this, but I can tell you with the few holes I've made for light duty things like I said (a small mirror, a little kitchen shelf) the walls are really sturdy, they don't crumble like that cardboard-y drywall in modern apartments. I can also tell you these walls are all original from 1931 if that helps place the material. The drill holes were super clean, the wall feels about an inch thick and hollow behind.
So if any of you with more expertise than me could help me out with identifying the walls and then what my anchor options are. Most things will be 10-20 lbs but I do have a 35lb wood framed mirror that we'd like to put up again in this new place. A hardware store salesperson told me to use the anchors that are beige and drill themselves into the wall that you then screw into but I don't see how that kind would ever be able to cut into these walls.
Thanks for any advice!
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I live in a two story A-frame cabin. It’s well built and more like an actual house. However, there are still improvements that need to be made to make it more house-like. The entire house inside is finished with pine tongue-and-groove board right on the studs. There is insulation in all the vertical studded walls.
Given it’s an A-Frame, the second story is mostly sloped walls. Those however, are NOT insulated. I gets really cold in the winter up there, and really hot in the summer. You put your hand to the wall and totally feel the outside.
I want to start insulating upstairs over in the master bedroom. The roof/ceiling paneling is supported with 4x6 beams at meet at the very top. Here’s what I’m trying to decide:
1. I don’t need to see the beams necessarily. I’m considering adding a bit of 2x6 framing in between the beams. Then running some Romex for recessed lighting, filling the entire cavity with 6 inch insulation and then putting tongue and groove pine board horizontally over it all.
2. Alternatively, I could do the same, but put sheetrock over the framing and beams, THEN after the sheetrock is up, install the tongue-and-groove paneling over it all for the wood finish. This method would be more work but would also be more robust. This is the method I would use downstairs as it’s fire-hardened. I’m not too concerned upstairs because in case of having to escape a fire, you want the bottom floor, and bottom floor ceiling to as fire resistant as possible. This upstairs section, if it were to catch fire, we’d already be out.
3. The last option would be to not use full 6 inch insulation and rather frame with 2x3’s. Then use either method above, but in between each beam, rather than over it all. This one might look the best since it still shows the beams.
I would love some feedback on the above so I can start drawing it out and planning for materials. Thank you.
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06-23-21, 12:05 PM
