Monday, July 06, 2020

Pro Tip

I am reroofing the shed at the property I just bought.  I have never done roofing of any kind.  There are lots of videos about starter strips and drip edges and other good things.  I recommend those.  But none of them mentioned the importance of the box that holds the roofing nails.

With standard three-tab shingles, each row is supposed to be 5" above the previous one. When you are up on a hot roof, you want to get that right, but you also want to limit the amount of equipment you bring  and you don't want to keep bringing out a tape measure and reaching way out at arm's length and trying to get it right.

The box of roofing nails is exactly 5" long.  That's a nice little touch that shows someone was thinking ahead.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:28 PM

    I was a roofer for some time. Just wood though, we were a high class operation. ;)

    Really for that length, your hammer is the best tool to measure with. On a roofers axe we use the hammer to axe edge, as its close to what you want for wood. For asphalt make, or find, a mark on the hammer.

    Using the nail box for that will get old quickly.

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  2. Sounds true, but no problem here. I did the front roof of the shed - just about one box of nails. I will do the back roof, which will be another box. Then I will do no more roofing. Scraping the box along the asphalt is eroding it, but that doesn't matter. Because it is a small-scale, ad hoc arrangement it involves a lot of lying on my stomach or twisting and reaching rather than setting up a proper platform. The latter would take more time than is worth it for this job. If I were going to redo the house roof...but I'm not going to redo the house roof. I'm hiring a guy for that.

    So I can't always see the hammer at anything like a 90-degree angle, and a mark would mislead me.

    However, your comment does convince me that I should not have named the post "Pro Tip." It's a good amateur tip, but pros know better.

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