Sauna drip edge to deflect water from walls and prevent mold.

The idea of a drip edge is simple. The sauna will have heat, steam and possibly water. All this will roll down the cedar walls and towards the floor. To prevent any water accumulation in the corners where the walls meet the floor, we want to deflect the water towards the drain. That’s where the drip edges come in. Basically, drip edges are pieces of “treated” wood around the perimeter of the hot room with a flat area on top the width of a cedar panel board (1/2 inch) sitting on it and a 45 degree slant from there towards the floor to deflect moisture. A photo is worth a thousand words:

Drip edge up close 1.

Drip edge up close 2.

To make the drip edge I used a table saw. First, I set the cut width to 1.75 inches and ripped a 2x4 treated piece of wood in half. That left me with two 1.75 inch pieces. 

Table saw blade setting to split a 2x4 in half.

Then, I set the table saw to ½ inch width, set the blade to 45 degrees and cut the 2 pieces of wood. Now I had 2 drip edges. 

Setting a table saw to 1/2 inch width for the 45 degree cut for drip edge.

I then measured the length of each wall that the drip edges will be attached to and made 45 degree miter cuts on each side so the drip edges came nicely together at the wall corners. Now this is why I didn’t glue the 2 sheets of PVC floor liner membrane I put down. I needed the membrane liner to be able to move snugly in to the corner under the drip edge by pushing on the drip edge. Once everything was good, I used a brad nailer to attach the drip edges around the room. Later when I started putting up the cedar tongue and grove, it all worked out very nicely.

A Glimpse Into The Future:

The drip edge is the first piece of wood sitting on the liner. The cedar rests on top of it.

Roofing, Underlayment, Shingles, Soffits, House Wrap and Windows...

I am starting to see how this works. If I don’t make 3 trips to the improvement store, the day is not over. Also, Pizza every Saturday is now getting predictable J

The plan for this weekend was grand. We wanted to:

-finish the soffits and fascia

-put down the ice and water membrane/underlayment

-put down shingles

-put up the Tyvek

-put in windows

The buddy who does siding for a living took up the fascia/soffits. One thing I learned is that the long sheets of soffit material do not go on the overhang as is. Instead, they get cut down to little rectangles that get put up from overhang to the building. So plan on that when buying material.

Drip edge over fascia with soffit below.

2x6 Fascia that will get covered up with aluminum and soffit below.

Return box being fabricated.

The day started with me putting up the drip edge on the eaves. Note: the drip edge gets put on first on the eaves, with Ice and Water membrane going on top of the drip edge. However, for the gables, the drip edge gets put on top of the Ice and Water. Ice and Water, by the way, is the name of the rubbery underlayment that is used on eaves and gables. Read further to find out more J.

The roll of the Ice and Water is pretty heavy to work with. So I measured the length of the roof, added some wiggle room and cut off a piece of the membrane on the ground. Then, rolled it up and took it up on the roof. Each piece has 2 white plastic sheets on the bottom side, and one small plastic strip on the opposite side. We’ll call that the top. We lined up the underlayment with the drip edge and left some slack on the gables to be cut off later. We rolled out the underlayment with the small strip of plastic facing up toward the sky and towards the roof peak. Once we had everything where we wanted, we took the top large sheet of plastic from the bottom of the underlayment and pulled it off to expose the glue. The underlayment was now glued from the top half. We then took the remaining bottom plastic piece off of the underlayment and now the whole thing was secured to the roof. We then went and put a few T50 staples through the little plastic strip that was facing up. The instructions don’t really say what that piece is and initially we thought we had to take off that plastic from the strip to expose the glue. As we found later, there was no need—the plastic stays on.

Also, I had read somewhere that the Ice and Water underlayment needs to cover at least 1 foot of the heated space. It needs to be put down on the eaves as well as the gables. With those 2 rules, I’d have most of the roof covered in the Ice and Water anyway, so I decided to ditch the cheaper felt paper and do the whole roof in Ice and Water. They also say it’s better that way—though more expansive. I ended up needing 3 rolls at $45 each.

Our next strip, we did the same thing. Cut the length of the roof with some extra on the ground, got it up on the roof, lined up the new piece to the bottom of the small plastic strip sticking up on the previous sheet, peeled the plastic from the bottom, glued the sheet and put staples through the upper strip.

We continued to lay 3 strips on each side of the roof while leaving the ridge of the roof to be done last. Once both sides were complete, we again cut a whole length sheet and put it over the ridge making sure it equally overhung on both sides of the roof. The sheet was again glued by peeling the backing and stapled.

After the underlayment was complete, we added the Drip Edge over it on the gable sides.

Drip edge over the Ice and Water underlayment on the gables.

Next we were ready for shingles, but first, we had to put down the starter strips on both eaves. The starter strip looks just like the Ice and Water, with one difference that it has blots of black glue on one edge. That glue needs to point up to the sky and be towards the eave’s end. When shingles are placed on top of it, the heat causes the first row of shingles to fuse to the black glue and holds them from coming up in the rain/wind.

The shingles starter roll with the glue blots before the shingles go up.

                         

When I went to the store to buy shingles, there were 2 different types I needed. One package of the Ridge shingles—those that go over the ridge. And, 11 boxes of the regular shingles. On a side note, it’s amazing how now every trip to the store is at least $300.

So the rule with shingles is pretty simple. First row needs to hang over the drip edge around ¼ inch. Once the first row is laid, if you look at the shingle, there’s 2 chalk lines on each piece. The top one, you use to put 6 roofing nails through equally spaced. The bottom line is what you use to line up the next row of shingles by. Finally, because once again, all the butt joins need to be staggered, the following rule is used. For the first row, you start with a full shingle piece. 2^nd row, you cut a ¼ off the first shingle and start the row that way. You then use that ¼ piece on the end. Next row, you’re down another fourth, so at this point, you start with ½ of a shingle piece. Next row ¼ piece, the following row, a full piece once again. If you do that, you’ll notice that each subsequent row covers the butt join of the previous row very nicely.

First row of shingles over starter roll.

In the midst of one of my trips to the store, the guys put up the house wrap for me. I basically bought a 9’ roll. And, since I have about 7’ walls, things worked out perfectly. The wrap was lined up to the eves and rolled around. We saved a few dollars by using regular staples to hold it in place instead of the specialized plastic-top nails. We’ll just be extra careful not to rip it. Otherwise, there are marking on the wrap for where the nails should go, so we put staples through those markings and called it good.

Small red dots on the paper is where the staples/nails go.

The fun thing with building this sauna is that I have all sorts of help available from my friends. So while 2 people were doing shingles on the roof, me and another guy took on putting in the windows.

For the windows, the following things needed to be done. The house wrap was cut such that the “wings” were folded inside the window rough opening on the sides and bottom. (They suggest a reverse-Y cut to be made) They were stapled from inside the building over the window opening. A special window membrane/underlayment was placed on the bottom sill and half way up the sides of the window rough opening as well as the outside wall. This protects the wood from standing water.

Window underlayment glued then cut in to shape.

A bead of caulk was put around the outside of the window opening and the window itself was put in. Once it was shimmed from inside on the bottom and leveled, 2 nails were put in to each of the 2 top corners. The window was then shimmed and leveled on the sides, and the bottom corners received 2 nails as well. At this point, the window was secured from being out of square, and the rest of the nails were put in. Once it was all nailed up, a special aluminum tape was put over the nails on both sides of the window first, and the last strip was put over the top making sure that it extended past the side tape on both sides. And with that—both the windows were done.

Caulk the window opening for better seal.

Ready for the window to be put in.

And it's official!

Once again, it was a full day of work that started at 10a and we got a lot done. However, we ran out of daylight and so, we still need to finish the shingles, the fascia on the back of the building and get started on the siding, but as the temperature outside gets cooler, we’re moving right on schedule to getting the exterior done so that we can start on the inside.

More info can be found from the following links off of my resources page:

Installing Ice and Water membrane, Felt and Drip Edge:
http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/video/replacing-roof-series-apply-drip-edge.aspx

How to shingle a roof:
http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/how-to-shingle-a-roof/

How to shingle a roof (more):
http://www.building-a-home-info.com/architectural-shingles.html