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dazureus

Should I be worried about how these roof planes intersect?

10 years ago

This is an intersection of two roof planes in the back of our new build. The back of the garage roof is on the left and it meets the back porch roof on the right. There's a generous overhang of a couple feet on the second floor above. It's unfortunate that the roof fascias don't line up, but the porch height is limited by a balcony that you can't see around the corner. The both roofs should be a 10/12 slope but I haven't measured the porch slope. Ideally, the porch roof would have run into the garage roof and terminated there. There is a pitch to the valley they create, but I'm worried about debris and moisture. What kind of minimum pitch would be acceptable here in this valley? Thanks.


Comments (7)

  • 10 years ago

    I'll say, it's not ideal but that doesn't mean it won't be just fine if its flashed and finished properly. Fortunately you have a good size eave right above it and because of the roof slopes not much rain will head to that valley. You may get some debris build up but it really just depends on your site and the wind around your house. If you extended the porch roof into the 10/12 roof you would still have a condition that needed to flashed properly to prevent future headaches. The advantage to the location of this valley however is that it appears it is entirely 'outside' so it is not over an interior finished space - and I would much rather have a leaky roof over a porch than a leaky roof over a living room.

  • 10 years ago

    Thanks for the input. You're pretty much confirming what I was thinking about everything. I'll just have to keep a close eye on how they flash it when they install the roof.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    Let me see if I can reverse engineer this question and have it make sense ;D

    Most roof shingles are designed to go on a minimum slope of 4" vertically in 12" horizontal. On a standard roof with a 90 degree intersection, and a 4/12 pitch, the slope straight up the valley is 4" vertical in 16.97" horizontal, or 2.83/12.

    IMO, anything less than that will require a roofing system in the valley designed for a flat roof. Standard valley flashing for a shingled roof will not work no matter how elaborate they try to make it look.., even with ice and water shield.

    Or add a cricket @ a 4/12 pitch.

  • 10 years ago

    Water and ice shield that whole area, including a foot up the wall. You will regret if you don't.

  • 10 years ago
    This came about because of job site changes vs. blueprints. We increased the depth of the basement to 10 feet, so the house came up a bit. We compensated the garage height, but it's off by a couple inches. I'll make sure to request increased ice shield in the valley, but I'm not too concerned about water infiltration into the house since it's 10" ICF. The elevations were tough to interpret here since the garage is at a 45 degree to the house. Even with 3d modeling, the roof planes are difficult to plan. It's an unfortunate result, but I've seen worse valleys. I was curious if someone had a creative solution.
  • PRO
    10 years ago

    The one solution I see would be to change the porch roof. Raise it and add a frieze underneath it. The frieze would be great enough in vertical height that the garage roof would die into it. The porch posts would need to be be at least 6" taller, which can't hurt as the porch reads as very squat.

    Then the two roofs are independent. Would the porch roof pitch need to wind up flatter to miss the windows? I can't tell. A flat soldered metal roof would not be a bad thing. Or EPDM; nobody is really going to see it.

    Casey