| In
This Article:
Old shingles are torn off
using shingle scrapers, shovels, and pitch forks. |
Related
Articles:
|
| Skill Level:
2 (Basic) |
Time Taken:
3 Hours |
By
Bruce W. Maki,
Editor
The house in this article was built around 1955. There were two
layers of shingles on the roof. The low-pitched roof measured about
14' x 42' on each plane, or just under 1200 square feet. The roof is
a simple gable design with no valleys.
 |
The old roof had one leak, which was near the
chimney, and many curled and broken shingles. Although the
leak could have been repaired, and the roof left alone for a
few more years, the homeowner chose to reshingle it while the
time and money was available. |
| This tool is a shingle scraper. It is
basically a flat-blade shovel with some big teeth. There is a
triangular "heel" welded to the bottom, which acts
like a ramp to pivot the scraper against and lift the shingles
from the roof. |
 |
 |
The scraper is simply pushed under the shingles
and lifted. This tool does a decent job of prying up the
roofing nails as well. |
| The red tool is a different form of shingle
scraper, one that I don't prefer to use. |
 |
 |
Either scraper was useful to get under the sheet
metal edge and pry it up.
It was once common practice in Northern Michigan to attach
galvanized steel sheets to the lower surface of residential
roofs. Presumably this lets snow and ice just slip right off,
reducing the chances of ice dams and roof leaks when the snow
begins to melt. The reality is... the snow and ice don't slip
off. |
 |
This flat-blade garden shovel also works
modestly well for removing shingles.
This garden pitch fork worked quite well for removing just
the top layer of shingles, making it much easier to carry them
to the edge of the roof for disposal.
|
 |
Disposal Of Shingles:
One of the biggest drawbacks to reshingling a roof is disposing
of the old shingles. Anyone who has never done shingling work before
might be surprised at the weight of asphalt shingles. Even the
cheapest grades of shingles weigh around 225 pounds per square (in
the roofing and siding business, a "square" is 100 square
feet). This roof had 2 layers of roofing, and about 12 squares of
roof area, so all the old shingles should weigh about 5400 pounds.
That's almost 3 tons!
The owner of this house had another project nearby that required
a huge dumpster, so we simply dropped the waste shingles into two
utility trailers parked below, and hauled the debris to the
dumpster.
| It took about an hour to scrape the shingles
from one side, with 4 people working. But there were still
lots of tiny pieces of shingle stuck to the wood, and many
roofing nails that needed to be removed or pounded down. |
 |
 |
The plumbing vent stack had an old metal
flashing around it, and it was sealed with gobs of roofing
tar. We removed that and scraped off the tar. |
| This is a typical scrap of shingle that was left
behind by the shovels and scrapers. |
 |
 |
I just used a rip-claw hammer to yank out the
nails. I went over the roof on my hands and knees and wiped
the small chunks of debris downhill with my gloves, and pulled
out any nails I found. This process took about 30 minutes per
side. |
| There were many boards with loose nails. This
roof was sheathed with 1x10 planks, as was common before the
widespread use of plywood for roof and floor sheathing. We
hammered down the nails. |
 |
 |
The ends of the roof boards told us where the
rafters lay... not to mention the rusty nails that were
popping out.
I drove in some 8-penny nails to secure the roof sheathing
boards to the rafters. I used one or two nails per 10 inch
wide board, at each rafter. |
 |
Continue To The Roof
"Dry-In" Phase.
|
Tools
Used:
- Cordless Drill/Driver
- Basic Carpentry Tools
- Small Level
- Tape Measure
|
Materials Used:
|
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