Used Material For Shed Roof

Hi,
I'm building an insulated 8 x 10 ft garden shed with a sloped plywood roof. Any suggestions on used materials to use for roofing? Or where to find them? I live in a city of 800k people, surrounded by big of crop farms. I've been watching online marketplaces for "plastic panel" and "metal panel". I've only found one source but it's a few hours away. I'm open to using waste material or paying for quality used material. I plan to collect rainwater from the roof for watering strawberries.
Maybe there's a commonly available used product that I haven't considered?
Thanks for your ideas!
Nick

'Steel roofing', 'tin roofing', 'barn roofing'... hell, just 'roofing'! Probably all more likely than 'panels'... in my part of the world at least!

It's high demand material here, especially since yuppies started using old barn panels with 'patina' as fashion-statement interior walls... ('Patina' is a rich people word that means 'rusty, but on purpose'.)

Even so, I've been first buyer at least 4 times in the last 3 years of watching craigslist. Probably more on facebook, but fuck facebook...

The going rate is about $1/linear foot for used panels around 36" wide, vs above $1 per square foot for new through fastened. Big saving for farm buildings.

Watch out for incorrextly placed holes, too close to the angled part of the rib and they will never seal up. I buy this stuff anyhow, extra cheap, and use it as rainscreen style siding instead..

Aha! A challenge!

And a man after my own heart. I'm mulling over the same challenge right now. Yes, I can afford to buy new metal roofing, but dammit I know the used stuff is out there for the taking. If I can just tap into it. If ...

Somewhere, somebody needs a metal garden shed removed for free. Somewhere a barn has fallen over, or been mangled by winds, and the owner needs cleanup before the property is listed. Posting an ad (Kijiji? Craigslist? what's hot in your area?) saying "will remove metal sheds in x area, no charge, full cleanup including base, reliable and honest" may get some action.

The Roof is Out There!

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Aha! A challenge!

And a man after my own heart. I'm mulling over the same challenge right now. Yes, I can afford to buy new metal roofing, but dammit I know the used stuff is out there for the taking. If I can just tap into it. If ...

Somewhere, somebody needs a metal garden shed removed for free. Somewhere a barn has fallen over, or been mangled by winds, and the owner needs cleanup before the property is listed. Posting an ad (Kijiji? Craigslist? what's hot in your area?) saying "will remove metal sheds in x area, no charge, full cleanup including base, reliable and honest" may get some action.

The Roof is Out There!

My best score of 'used' roofing was brand new, 10ft and 12ft clicklock style standing seam panels, from someone who had sold the machine and business and ran out of projects for their leftovers.... but that deal I only found because I was in their back yard buying a bulldozer. The problem is, now I really don't like the through-fastened stuff anymore...

From a salvage perspective, I search for keywords like 'must + moved', or 'removed'. Having a trailer and being ready to go are key. Wanted ad would be a great option, but likely will yield some dross in with the good stuff..

Nice! And good advice.

I've considered going up to farmhouses that have some rotting barn on their property, full of roof material that could be reused, but I haven't. It may or may not be a successful venture...

I have heard a farmer who unexpectedly had a barn fall down and it was, of course, a heartbreak.  They got quite aggravated by the people coming by offering to take away  the barn boards and other valuables.  

Kinda like - "Hey, you just had a pretty big financial hit there...  Mind if I take some of the remaining value away?"

So I'd encourage you to focus on buildings that are decaying and useless versus barns that recently had a disaster strike.

As another side note, the "trash to treasure" antique place near me charges $1 per foot for non-rusty barn tin and $2 per foot for rusty.  When my barn finally gets rusty enough to be worth something, I'll see if I can upgrade to non-rusty and make some money in the process.

J. Rosseau wrote:I've considered going up to farmhouses that have some rotting barn on their property, full of roof material that could be reused, but I haven't. It may or may not be a successful venture...

You never know until you ask. If they tell you to buzz off, no harm done. However, from their perspective, they may see a salvage job as free labour that solves their problem.

Is there a building supply reuse type store or salvage materials place in your city?  Around me there is a Habitat for Humanity ReStore business that builders or regular people can donate still usable building supplies to which they then sell at reduced rates with funds going to support Habitat for Humanity.  There is also a demolition business, "Pitch Wrecking", in my region that saves materials or items they think might be saleable, though their prices are not always great.  I might wander around such places looking at the materials with an eye to how something might function as roofing.

I've never tried it, but as speculation I wonder how using smaller sheets of metal layered down like shingles would work.  Could you do this with flattened metals cans as a way to directly recycle them?  Many years ago one of the local "shopper" type weekly newspapers would sell off their old aluminum printing plates for 40 cents a piece.  These were the size of newsprint sheets, though fairly thin.  I bought a bunch to use as part of a shed I was working on back then.  I can't say it worked well for me, but then at the time I wasn't patient enough to carefully bend and shape them as I should have for my intended use.  If you were to try using such a material for roofing I would think you'd need to cut them into narrower sheets to lay down like shingles otherwise the wind would pick up the un-nailed edge way too easily.

Old post but I have something new to add!
Discarded water heaters.
The average water heater should yield a square of sheet metal a little bigger than  4' x 4'.
It will have holes for drains in odd places, but those should be easily plugged.

If you are wanting to collect rainwater you also get the tank,  which comes complete with openings that have standardized threads.
If you dont want the tank as a tank, you could cut the ends off , cut down one side and flatten the whole thing out, for a very sturdy sheet of steel.

Another thing that's often cheap or free are old washer/dryers. You'd get stuff you don't want, but the walls are pre-painted and look about 3'x3' on usually 3 sides.

Is this idea crazy?

Hm! It's an intriguing question: coated metal from indoor appliances as outdoor roofing.

A lot of these appliances have a tough, deep epoxy type coating applied -- built for temperature changes and moisture. Though as soon as you bend/flatten them, it cracks the coating and exposes the underlying mild steel to corrosion.

This requires further investigation, and experiments.  

In Straylia I would look for ' used corrugated roofing iron', that should find it.
Or a Demolition yard.

Salvage Supermarket - Salvage Supermarket Winnipeghttp://www.salvagesupermarket.com
Salvage ​Supermarket The #1 Used Materials dealer in ​Winnipeg, MB ... ​Come take a look through our salvage yard to find everything from I-beams and ...

imre demolition yard Map - Manitoba, Canada - Mapcartahttps://mapcarta.com › ... › Canada › Prairies › Manitoba
imre demolition yard is an industrial park in Manitoba. imre demolition yard is situated in South Point Douglas. From Mapcarta, the open map.

Springfield Salvage - Scrap Yard in Winnipeg,Manitoba, Canadahttps://www.scrapmonster.com › ... › Winnipeg
Springfield Salvage Scrap Yard. Recycling Centers in 1642 Springfield Rd, Winnipeg, MB R2G, Canada,,Winnipeg,Manitoba, Canada-ZIP:1642 Springfield Rd.

Barn Demolition & Farm Yard Clean-Up - Rosser, Manitobahttps://www.facebook.com › HHwpg › videos › barn-dem...
Video for Demolition yard Manitoba
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The Hagemeister Hauling crew tackles a barn clean-up, demolition and removal in Rosser Manitoba just ...

Barn Demolition & Farm Yard Clean-Up - Rosser, Manitobahttps://tl-ph.facebook.com › videos· Translate this page
Video for Demolition yard Manitoba
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The Hagemeister Hauling crew tackles a barn clean-up, demolition and removal in Rosser Manitoba just ...
6 Sept 2019

What about old fence boards? Some had a new fence put up and needs to get rid of the old fence.

Hi Anne,

I regularly use fence boards for building.

John F Dean wrote:Hi Anne,

I regularly use fence boards for building.

John, we have found the valuable and cheap for lots of building projects.  I don't know about current lumber prices or even what they might have been 5 years ago. Though when we were doing a lot of building projects a fence board was cheaper than a comparable piece of lumber.

The only example I can remember is when we used them for window and door trim on a storage building.

 I prefer to build  fences from pallet wood, because Im cheap.
Dog ear fence boards are the cheapest form of cedar  I've found for sale new.
I use them for raised beds, where a long lasting nontoxic matirial is really important to me.
Used fence boards, cedar or treated, can work as cladding or shingles.
I would not use them for roof deck.

Here's a way to use aluminum cans to make roof shingles.