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:
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.
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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