What are people using for step flashing?
jnsn
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
I am currently trying to pay more attention to the time/cost of things. As I am on a roof right now, I was wondering what others are doing for step flashing? At the local yard the choice is copper, lead-coated copper, aluminum, lead.None of them are pre-formed. I have always used lead. I just bought two rolls of 8″ lead and cut and bent them. Two rolls were $110 and a little over 1 hour plus etc so these babies are 1.75 each. WOW. I don’t think I was figuring that right.
Replies
I have always used pre-formed aluminum and painted or galvanized steel.
Preformed is very common here. Doesn't your roofing supplier have 'em?
All of the prebent steps that I have seen are undersized by my standards.
Also consider whether using an appropriately colored flashing will eliminate the need to deal with the gap that you should have between the bottom of your siding and the roof.
It would depend on the adjoining materials. For asphalt shingles against siding aluminum is sufficient because it will last as long as the shingles. Against masonry, though, aluminum is iffy. Or with a long lasting roof such as slate or tile, aluminum may not last the life of the roof.
we always make our own step flash....except for Velux skylights
we use copper ..... when appropriate...
most times we use colored coil stock, which is a thicker guage than mill finish step flash
we use lead mostly around brick workMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
well I guess I should have been more specific. The job is asphalt roof and wood shingles. What I ripped out were 3 small aluminum bends applied for each step. That seems like a bother and were too flimsy for my liking. I'll have to look into the coil stock angle.There is no separate roofing supply here, just general yards.It's just funny sometimes how the small stuff can add up and eat away at the "profit" if you are not careful. For many years I worked for a T&M type contractor so I am playing a little catch-up as to pricing some work. In this economy people seem to want bids for everything, no matter how small. So I figured -first get the job and then keep careful notes for next time
I heard here that someone uses the aluminum that continuous gutters are made from. It's slightly heavier than the usual coil stock. They got the ends of rolls from a gutter company for a reasonable price.
Ditto Mike Smith. Mill finish coil stock if you're being cheap, or colored (generally brown) to make is disappear. Copper for the nicer places.
Make your bends so the factory edge shows, not a cut edge.
... so these babies are 1.75 each. WOW....
Assuming these pieces are about 16" long, that sounds about right. Custom-bent galvanised 24" 'W' flashing runs me a bit under four bucks a foot.
Like you, I don't have a roofing supply specialty house nearby, so I have to deal with one of the two 'big-box' yards in the area--where all I can get is cheap crud--or go to the local tin guy and have him bend what I want out of decent quality stock. Getting what you really need to do the job right makes all the difference...but the HO has to be willing to pay for a quality job, too.
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