In the summer heat, my roof secreates a smell of tar into the living room. This room has a ceiling of exposed wood and beams. I fear the roof is not insulated and the tar paper was laid right onto the ceiling boards.
Any ideas what can be done about this condition?
Replies
More info, please. What kind of roof is it? BUR, asphalt shingles, ?
Its never too late to be up to date.
http://grantlogan.net/
ASPHALT SHINGLES
Ok, where are you? If you fill in your profile beyond female, we can be of better assistance. If I understand correctly, you can see the rafters from inside and there is T&G sheathing on top of them and you don't know if there is insulation above the sheathing (below the shingles). How long have you lived in the home and is this a recent occurance?What else can you tell us about the house?
Its never too late to be up to date.
http://grantlogan.net/
Sorry for the lack of detail. I am new at this.
The house is in Carson City NV. This is high desert country and is cold in winter and hot in summer. The house was built in 1979. The only room that has this condition is the great room which is about 800 square feet with a raised exposed circular ceiling.
The problem occurs once the outside temp reaches upper 80's on a sunny day. The roof was installed 5 years ago and I noticed the problem 3-4 years ago after I started staying home in the daytime. Also, summers seem to be getting hotter [thanks to global warming?] so the effect seems to be increasing.
Greetings c, Welcome to Breaktime.
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will recatch cu's or someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
half of good living is staying out of bad situations
Well, since you haven't gotten many answers and you're new and you have a good question, I will give you a maybe not so good answer. Maybe this will prompt others to give you a better one. I guess I would try sealing the odor by painting the boards and beams with shellac--or spraying with shellac. Shellac is supposed to even seal in odors of smoke in fire damaged buildings. Other than tearing the roof off and starting over, I don't have a better idea.
How would that stop the odor from coming thru the gaps in the roof sheathing? It sounds like she is describing a situation with asphalt felt laid directly over 2x t&g sheathing, and the felt is getting hot enough in the summer to cause an odor. Makes perfect sense to me.
The only easy fix I can imagine is caulking all those gaps, which would look delightful if that ceiling is natural wood, as I imagine it is. I suppose a guy could get incredibly anal, mask off all the wood surrounding the gaps, and try to caulk without getting any on the surface of the wood, but 800 SF of that would challenge anyone's patience.
Otherwise, strip the roof and do something to isolate the felt from the interior of the building. Using a synthetic roofing underlayment might be a solution, or adding some foam insulation/OSB sheathing board over the t&g sheathing and under the roofing (other benefits there as well).
The only easy fix I can imagine is caulking all those gaps, which would look delightful if that ceiling is natural wood
Clear caulk
Still ugly, in my opinion. I would see the caulk unless it's way more than 8 or 9 feet off the ground. It's not necessarily going to solve the problem anyway.
You are right, the clear caulk may be permeable to the odor. If C goes the shellac route first, she could then use clear latex and wipe off the excess with a sponge. It is still a whole lot cheaper than the tearoff that we all know will solve the issue.If C used the method in the first paragraph and it still stank, then a second coat of shellac would seal both the wood and the cured clear latex caulk. That ought to work. One plus is that when the roof eventually is replaced, the caulked ceiling will prevent all the fine dust from falling through and covering all her furnishings.Bill