Nate Nagel wrote:
clot wrote:
dicko wrote:

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:29:38 -0700, runsrealfast
wrote:

I'm sure I could get someone at HD or Lowes to tell me this but,
what would be used to secure shingles to the roof of a house. I
have one or two to replace before winter hits. They are just your
typical shingles that you find everywhere.

Sorry not a contractor so I don't know the technical names of the
shingles.

John


A 3-tab shingle is typically held in place with 8 nails, 2 nails
above each crack separating the tabs, 2 on each edge of the
shingle, all in a row, and then another 4 nails from the row
immediately above it. To remove the bad shingle you have to pop the
nails for the shingle itself and then the nails for the row above
it. The shingle should slide right out. That's assuming the tar
strip holding the rows together has already been broken when
removing the nails.

That means you have to bend up the row immediately above the
shingle being replaced and the row above that to remove and later
pound in the nails. This is tricky because old shingles are often
very brittle and you end up breaking the shingles you want to
remain in place. I just went thorugh this with my house and ended
up replacing far more than just the one bad shingle.

You'll need a very fine prybar to get under the nail heads to pop
them out. What works for me is an old flat screwdriver (my
general-purpose do-anything-but-dont-use-to-drive-screws
screwdriver) that I hook under the nail head and pry up on.

removing the nails also leaves holes in the remaining shingles so
you'll need a tube of roofing tar to seal the holes and also to dab
under the shingles to kind of glue them back down.


I'm surfing from the UK.

Words change their meaning travelling across The Pond. I guess "roof
shingles" now covers most types of "tiles". I've sadly deleted the
start to this thread and so do not know whether the OP referred to a
specific type of shingle.

I think you are referring to a concrete shingle, (but I could easily
be wrong!) - how wide are these? In the UK we use just two nails to
clip them to the top of the batten - not eight. Our's are about 9 to
12" wide.

Once upon a time, all our roofing material used to come from N Wales
- slate, which made for a pleasing appearance. Sadly, today most are
concrete and bespoke homes are rooved with slate from China.

I think he's actually referring to asphalt shingles which are common
in many parts of the US. I don't know if that's also what the OP was
referring to or not.

We used to have slate roofs here as well; my grandparents' house
(circa 1880) and barn had very pretty slate roofs. Sheetmetal roofs
with raised seams, both steel and copper, are common in very
wind-prone areas (enameled steel seems to be common in rural PA but
some more upscale houses like to use copper,) but asphalt is by far
the most common over here, and also the most likely to have bad
shingles that need replacing (they really only last 20-30 years at
best.)

Thanks for the information, Nate.