A New Roof For The Chicken Coop

 DH built my chicken coop 22 years ago. For the first few years, its roof consisted of OSB covered in tar paper.  At some point after 2006, he used some scrap steel to cover the tar paper, making it more weather resistant and prolonging the life of the roof.

While the steel roof was better than just the tar paper alone, it had not been intended to be permanent.  The steel used was long, narrow pieces and there weren't enough of them to cover the roof if DH ran them the correct way, which would have been so that water would run off down the slope of the roof.  Instead, he ran them the 'wrong' way, which meant that the ridges in the steel prevented the water from running entirely off.  

That wasn't really a big deal, at first.  But, as the years went by and temporary became sorta-permanent (or whatever you'd call almost two decades), strong winds and storms worked on those horizontal seams of the roof, loosening a few of the pieces of steel and also allowing rain to get driven up under it in spots.

It also meant that the water that did run off didn't exit at the back of the coop, but at the sides, typically at the base of a ridge, including right where I stood to latch and unlatch the door of the coop where I go in and out.  Not a big deal either, except on those shoulder season ice cold rains, where it would pour on my head or down the collar of my jacket--BRRR!

For the last few years, whenever we'd have a big storm from the west (which is where most of our storms come from), water would leak through the roof and into the coop in a couple of spots.  This year, one of those leaks got really bad, and after each storm I'd have a large spot of soaked wood shavings/chicken litter inside the coop.  Which is neither efficient use of the bedding/shavings, nor is it good for the plywood floor.

Finally, DH got to 'replace coop roof' on his To-Do List.  He had scrap steel from building his shop, and thought it probably was enough to cover the coop.  On Saturday morning, he tore off the old steel.

After lunch he started putting the new steel on.  I helped here and there, such as handing up the pieces of steel so he didn't have to climb up and down the ladder for each one, snapping the chalk line for where to cut, holding the overhanging ends of the steel while he cut them, and operating the tractor for our redneck steel brake.

DH had decided to bend the steel overhanging the short sides of the coop, to help weatherproof that so driving rains couldn't get under those exposed ends (he has plans for trimming out/covering the front and back ends).  Since we don't own a steel brake--or even an aluminum brake--he DIY'ed one with a chunk of oak 4"x4" and me manuevering the tractor forks to put pressure in the right spots to bend the steel.

So now the chicken coop has a new roof.  Where the metal runs in the correct direction and the seams run front to back instead of side-to-side. And water won't run off onto my head and down the collar of my jacket when I'm trying to go in or out collecting eggs and feeding and watering the chickens.