Rain rain go away

We’ve been struggling to dry in the structure for the last few weeks as we continue to get hit by weekly storms.  The last one, five days ago, dumped 1 3/4 inches of rain overnight and we again had to pump, squeegee, and vacuum out the water.

The problem is this:

Part of the exposed beam ceiling sits up against the roof joists, and there is very little space between the top of the ceiling and the underside of the roof.  We have fire sprinklers and lighting that had to go in there (circled in red above) as access will be difficult after the roof sheathing is on.  From the top, it looks like this:

You can see how little space there is. That entire space has to be filled with spray foam insulation.  For the rest of the roof, we can spray the insulation on from underneath, but in a couple of places, like this one, the exposed beam (false) ceiling prevents access, so the spray foam has to go on from the top.

The problem is, as I understand it, it is bad if the spray foam insulation gets wet.  So, this is what we need to be able to insulate:

  • A few days of no rain for the area to dry out so we can spray the insulation on
  • A day for the spray foam to cure
  • Availability of the roof sheeters to quickly sheet the roof (takes about a day)
  • Availability of the roofers to dry in the roof (lay tar paper down).

But we keep getting hit with storms every 5-10 days; great for the severe drought our area is in (our local reservoir Cachuma Lake is down to 8% of capacity), but bad for trying to get a roof on.

With a storm rolling in tomorrow night, we missed the windows this week, but are hoping for next week.

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