The Manger is Ready for Christmas

Now that the steel is all up and the roof joists installed, Barry and his crew have put down the first layers of the roof over the dining/living room and master bedroom. So the finished ceiling there is done.

"Huh? How does that work? You haven't even installed the standing seam galvalume yet."

Well, this is no ordinary roof, it's an Arctic Hot Roof. If you have an attic, you probably have a cold roof design, where the space in the attic is unconditioned and insulated from the living area. In the winter, it's cold in the attic, and therefore the roof itself is cold, preventing snow from melting on the roof and getting water into the house. It's a good system, but it's not perfect (the space has to be vented, which creates opportunities for moisture and critters to get in there, moisture can seep up from the conditioned space, the moisture can turn to frost in really cold climates, and so on.)

The Arctic Hot Roof, perfected in Canada and other cold climates, focuses all its insulation (6" of continuous rigid foam) and waterproofing efforts on the roof structure itself, and doesn't require an attic. All the air under the roof plane is heated (hence the "hot roof"). That's very helpful for this design, which has a massive shed roof (thanks to the covenants and restrictions that required a pitched roof). It also means that the maple veneer plywood ceiling panels were the first layer on top of the roof joists. I hope I like them....

The windows finally got ordered (the window company is very nervous), so the manger won't be one for long.