Shed, garage and carport roofing in Traralgon

A rusted, leaking or wind-damaged roof on a shed, garage or carport around Traralgon is usually fixed by replacing the worst sheets or re-sheeting the whole roof in new steel, with new fasteners, ridge capping and gutters. In Victoria a roof plumber in the full roofing class or in the restricted class for Class 10a buildings can do it, and old cement sheets need an asbestos check first. This site sends your enquiry on to independent roofers and roof plumbers, who decide whether to quote and do the work themselves.

Which outbuildings does this cover?

The Building and Plumbing Commission describes Class 10a buildings as including a private garage, a carport and a shed or the like. That is the group its restricted roofing class is limited to. On a typical Latrobe Valley property that includes:

• garden sheds and workshops
• single and double garages, attached or freestanding
• carports, including skillion carports off the house
• machinery and hay sheds on rural blocks
• open-sided stables and shelters

Verandahs and patios attached to the house can be more complicated, because work on them may touch the roof of the house itself. Say in your enquiry if the roof joins the house.

Who is allowed to roof a shed in Victoria?

The BPC has a restricted class, roofing stormwater work restricted to Class 10a buildings, that covers metal roof coverings, flashings, roof drainage and downpipe components for rainwater tanks on Class 10a buildings only. Someone in that class can re-sheet your shed or carport, but cannot do any roofing stormwater work on the house. A roof plumber in the full roofing class can do both.

There is one exclusion worth knowing. The main roofing class page says the class does not cover work on a freestanding Class 10a building with a floor area of 10 square metres or less, unless it needs connecting to a below-ground drain or a retention tank. So a small garden shed with its own downpipe onto the grass is outside roof plumbing, while the same shed piped to a tank is inside it.

Building	Roof plumbing class needed	Notes
Freestanding shed of 10 m2 or less, no drain or tank connection	Outside the roofing plumbing definition	Still a job for someone competent at height
Freestanding shed of 10 m2 or less, piped to a tank or underground drain	Roofing (stormwater), full or Class 10a restricted	Downpipe to tank is part of the work
Larger shed, garage or carport	Roofing (stormwater), full or Class 10a restricted	Compliance certificate once the value passes the set amount
Verandah or carport tied into the house roof	Roofing (stormwater), full class	Restricted class does not cover the house

Trade classes and builder registration are explained in full in our Victorian roof trades guide. Whether a new or enlarged shed needs a building permit is a separate question for your council or a building surveyor.

Signs a shed roof needs work

• rust holes or rust streaks along sheet laps and around fasteners
• daylight visible through the roof from inside
• sheets lifting at the edges or rattling in wind
• fasteners backed out, or their rubber washers cracked and perished
• sagging purlins, often where water has pooled
• gutters rusted through or pulled away, overflowing onto the slab or the tank stand
• old grey cement sheets that have cracked or been patched

Old cement sheets on sheds

Check whether your shed roof is steel or a grey corrugated cement sheet. Asbestos Victoria says buildings from before 1990 likely contain asbestos and lists corrugated roof sheets, ridge capping, guttering and downpipes among the common places it turns up. Only a laboratory test confirms it.

If your shed has cement sheets, get them tested before anyone drills through them, cuts them or pulls them off. Licensed removal, then a new metal roof, is the safe order, and the asbestos roof replacement page walks through it in full.

Wind on open blocks around Traralgon

Sheds on open paddocks and the edges of town take the full force of the wind, and a carport or open machinery shed catches gusts underneath as well as over the top. The Bureau of Meteorology station at Latrobe Valley Airport has recorded a gust of 122 km/h, and it has record gusts of 100 km/h or more in four different months.

What that means for the roof:

• Fixings. Ask what fastener type, length and spacing the roofer will use, and whether the existing purlins are sound enough to hold them. New sheets on rotten timber or rusted purlins are the first to go.
• Edge sheets and ridge. These lift first. They should be fixed more closely than the middle of the roof.
• Open sides. Carports and open sheds may need extra fixing or bracing because wind gets underneath.
• Gutters and downpipes. Loose gutters on a shed are easily torn off in a storm and can damage the tank or vehicles.

If a storm has already lifted or peeled sheets, a permanent roof repair after storm damage sits at $680 to $4,800 on The Quote Yard’s Victorian storm repair guide. A small shed re-sheet may land toward the lower end of that range; a large rural shed can exceed it. Check whether your home building or farm policy covers the shed. To get the shed itself measured and priced, describe the shed roof damage with its rough size and sheet profile.

Owners on larger blocks can also read the Glengarry roofing page and the Tyers roofing page for local detail.

Shed roofs that feed a rainwater tank

Plenty of Latrobe Valley sheds double as the catchment for a rainwater tank. Installing and fabricating downpipe components for rainwater tanks is listed in the BPC’s roofing classes, so the downpipe and tank connection are part of the roof plumber’s work. When the shed is re-roofed:

• choose a sheet coating suited to collecting rainwater and ask the roofer to confirm it
• replace rusted gutters and downpipes at the same time so rust flakes stop washing into the tank
• check the leaf guards, first flush diverter and tank inlet are reconnected properly
• make sure the overflow still runs away from the shed slab

Gutters and downpipes on the house are covered on the gutters and downpipes page.

How a shed re-sheet usually goes

1. Inspection. Roof size, sheet profile, purlin condition, any cement sheets, gutters and tank connection.
2. Quote. Sheet profile and colour, fastener type, ridge and barge flashings, gutters, downpipes, disposal of old sheets and any purlin replacement.
3. Strip and check. Old sheets come off (cement sheets only by a licensed asbestos removalist), purlins are checked and replaced where needed.
4. New roof. Sheets laid and fixed down, then ridge and barge flashings fitted.
5. Drainage. Gutters, downpipes and tank connection fitted or reconnected.
6. Paperwork. A compliance certificate for roof plumbing work over the set value, issued by a licensed plumber.

What a careful roofer checks and will not skip

• the class on their BPC registration matches the building (house roofing needs the full class)
• an asbestos test on any cement sheet before work starts
• purlin and frame condition, not only the sheets
• safe access, especially on a high shed or one with brittle skylight sheets
• correct fixings for an exposed site
• the tank connection and first flush, when there is a tank

Next step

Measure the shed roughly (length and width) or estimate it in car spaces, then note the sheet profile and whether the roof feeds a tank. Attach two or three photos showing the roof, the gutters and any rust or damage, plus a close photo of the sheet edge if you suspect cement. Then ask for a shed or carport roofing quote and a local roof plumber can tell you how they would approach it.

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