Updated 1-31-23
How to cut Dormers Metal Roof
⏱️⏱️Chapters⏱️⏱️
00:00 Intro
00:22 How to cut dormers
00:40 You will have varying angles
00:50 First on the valley you want to fasten way back from where metal might come under
01:05 Go 4″, you could go 6″ you want to be back
01:30 You can’t always count on the framing to be square
02:15 If you are doing rake and corner, you can get square to start with
02:30 You need to know what your bottom of the valley is
03:00 Take tape measure where your angle will start
03:45 Usually have a small cut off piece of metal, want to use the factory cut off edge
04:00 Find where outside corner hits on that line
05:13 Cutting the metal for the valley
06:40 Wiss Snips to cut 26 gauge material
08:15 Why I use straight snips
09:08 Installing angled piece of metal
09:40 Home Depot was out of straight snips when they went
10:13 What if it’s a long valley?
11:00 Why he’s screwing the metal without putting valley foam
11:30 Take care of yourselves and be safe
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You’re up here with me on a very steep roof. It’s been a very big roof to do by me and one person. A lot of times people ask questions on how to cut dormers. I’ve done that inside a video, so this will be a separate video on if you just want to go to that. So a lot of times you have varying angles.
So what we’re trying to do is figure out how to get the angle transferred and then fastened where we need to be. First of all, on your valley, once it’s fastened, of course you want to fasten those way back from where your metal might come through underneath or in that case. So I’ve got the screw way up here and here’s where we mark four inches to here.
You can go to six. In this case, we’re going to four. You want to be back beyond that with your screws that hold that in place, then you mark your mark at four or six back and we start from there. All right now, we’ve got a metal coming from there to here. You can’t always count on the framing on the sofit and fascia or the roofing to be square.
So you want to try to catch it as you go along. Hey, I’m running out of square. You want to squeeze the top in to get the bottom swing around or squeeze the top? You know, you can do squeeze the top in, lapping it over a little bit more and pull on this side and you’ll gain an eighth inch there, an eighth inch down here or even sometimes as much as a quarter.
It’s a lot you do a quarter. I’d recommend just do it an eighth at a time so you can get more square as you notice it. That’s if you’re not doing rake and corner on the fake. On the face of it, in this case, we’re not. If you’re doing rake and corner then you can get square to begin with. And a lot of times you can tell with the how it’s running on the shingles, one side is going to be deeper than the other side. Now back to the angles, and we’ve made our mark on, on our valley, which it has that ribbon in here to make it a valley. And then we go, I need to know what the bottom is. So I’m going to put a four foot level across here. And where that intersection is, is right about a quarter inch, three-eighths of an inch, maybe a half right there.
Okay. So then I can take a tape measure.
It’s really steep. All right.
Get everything locked in, so don’t fall off. Now we’re going to measure from this side of it, because remember, we’re lapping and then that half inch from looks about 15. All right. So now we know the bottom is going to go over 15 inches and that’s where our angles are going to start. And I’ll take you with me now.
I usually have small cut off piece so I can get and I want to use the factory square edge. What we’re going to do is find out where this corner, the outside corner hits on that line. And we’re going to slide it up with this sitting, you know, solid on that rib to find that square. Just another reason why it’s important to be as square as possible.
See how I’m coming down to this four inch mark right here. Right there. And I’m sitting square on that. And then I’m going to mark right there. Remember, come here, from this bottom is where we’re going to lap to, to this mark is how much I going to go up on that side. 28 and a half. Ok, remember we were 15 across and then we’re going to go 28 and a half up to get our angle.
So let’s go down there and do that. You can shut it off.
All right. So we’re starting we’re laps over that other rib up there and then we’re going to go over 15. Now, if you’re working by yourself, this is really handy to do. You go and make yourself a little slit like that. That way you can pop the line to where we’re going to next 28 and a half.
If you remember, we measured up from that square over. On this outside edge. Now you can either do a four foot level like so make sure we’re on both marks or you can do a chaulk line, from here to there. Particularly if it’s a really long cut. This is pretty long.
We get a lot of complaints from my less experienced cohorts, that 26 gauge is hard to cut, and it is. But it’s good to have a new set of snips. These are Wiss which open a little bit deeper. W-I-S-S, Home Depot sells them. I’ve been using Wiss for a long time. I’ve tried other brands, including Craftsman’s, so on, so on, so on, Wiss just seems to do better.
I don’t like the new lock that they put on them. It’s getting in my way a lot, just like I don’t like locks on tape measures because I’ve gotten used to not having it. So anyway, the biggest thing, is sharp snips, and you’re contributing to that cut by you holding down on one side and pulling up on another. So you’re pulling up and you’re holding down literally trying to tear this sheet. This is 26 gauge, not 29 gauge.
So it’s much, much heavier. You see how that tore? It wants to tear. You’re just encouraging it with these where you want it to tear. I’m using straights, because most of the time I’m cutting straight lines. You can use left handed and right handed and cut straight.
The problem with that is that it puts your hand on one side or the other instead of in the middle. I’m right handed. I’m tend to be on the right side, but I can tilt and still cut straight. Whereas if I had right hand or left hand, I won’t be able to tilt because I’m already more on that side.
But there will be people argue about that. It’s been my experience and I’m just trying to help you understand. So now we’ve cut this angle, 28 half here, 15 here. We’re going to take it up and we’re going to put it in place.
All right now, we’re putting it in place. Everything’s right on. Clay mentioned that, you know, people might get fussy, about when we went to Home Depot, it had a probably 20 right hand, 20 left hands. They were sold out of straight. So I’m not the only one that thinks strikes are a way to go for overall. It’s good to have left hand, right hand when you cut corners that direction in a round way.
But more power to you if you can figure out how to do it otherwise. Now, I’m gonna screw all this off. If this was a real long angle, okay? I would do that square piece again and then I would measure from that point to measure up to that mark. But in this case, it’s short. So I may actually able to measure across the top and measure up for my length.
That’s my mark for on the right hand side from that point to that point. And then the over, since it’s less than 37 inches wide, which is what these panels are now, I’m going to put screws in this because I’m going to come back and pull the screws out, put the foam in. I don’t want to open up those foam the valley closure until I’m ready to do them all.
The reason is because it just keeps on expanding. It doesn’t wait for you a day or two later to come by because then it’s just totally huge. So I’ll take you through that as I think I have on several other videos that I’ve done. But this is the situation we’re in. It’s really steep, really slick on the metal.
When you’re working by yourself, please be careful. Even if you’re working with somebody, be careful. You don’t want to be hung over because that seems drunk and then you’re not in your faculties. You don’t want to be high. A lot of roofers are drinkers and drug users and they fall off the roof and they get hurt and they don’t have no workman’s comp because they were testing dirty.
And it’s I know why you do it because there’s a lot of pain. You don’t last very long. And if you do this trade all time, same as concrete work and a number of other jobs out there. And God bless you all. I don’t want to do it all the time. The heat is horrible and concrete and roofing is hard on your body.
The probably carpet another one hard on certain sections of your body and high injury rates. There’s a number of others. Guys, please be careful with yourselves. Pace yourself because your life is a marathon and every day’s adventure. So hopefully I helped you with that and I’ll see you another time.
