On 11 Sep 2004 03:25:35 GMT, (Greg) scribbled this
interesting note:

The reality is most of the "devastation" you see is trailers or houses with the
(stapled) shingles ripped off. Of course there are houses built by northern
builders who think they know all there is to know about building and the whole
roof flies away.

Just to address the stapled shingles point you raise...

Here in the Dallas area we get plenty of big thunderstorms, tornadoes,
straight-line winds, etc. I don't mean small summer breezes of thirty
or forty miles an hour. In about thirty years of using Paslode staples
and pneumatic guns we've only had a hand full of times when we have
had to replace blown off shingles. One time in particular I remember
when every house but one on a street that had a tornado pass close by.
Every house but one required some kind of roof repair. The one was one
we installed. With staples. The house next door, also one of our
installations, did require some repair. The wind turbines were removed
by the storm. Installed new turbines and a few shingles that were
removed by the turbines and all was right again as the rest of that
roof also had no damage.

It isn't the choice of roof fastener that is of primary importance. It
is the installation. Used properly, roofing nails installed by hand,
pneumatic coil nail guns, or pneumatic staple guns, each method will
perform well if installed well. Of course any method of installing
fasteners will fail if a bunch of slugs are doing the job...
--
John Willis
(Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)