Alternate Layouts for 3 tab Shingles,
I am a Homeowner who decided to do my own roof. I did it as a teenager (25 years ago). I had done my kitchen roof back in 94, and I bought enough shingles to do the whole roof. It was time to finish the job, but I just wasn’t satified with the way the Horizon “Shangles” I bought looked when laid out in the standard way from the vertical line.
Back in May, I started a discussion about alternate patterns for laying out 3 tab shingles. I had seen a roof out in Berkeley 8 years ago that had a “random” layout that I liked, and I was hoping someone would know what this pattern was. I took several responses, and spent a whole lot of time experimenting with layout patterns using Visio. I came up with a pattern that I liked.
Well it came to Memorial Day Weekend, time to do the front half of the roof. I had enlisted help from a neighbor, and he was complaining that I insisted on laying out the shingles horizontally. He has done 200+ roofs, and he wanted to do them vertically because it was faster. I showed him how the “shangle” portion of the shingle frequently spans from one shingle to the next, and laying them vertically looks wrong to me. When I convinced hin that we should do it my way, I realized that doing my random pattern just wasn’t going to be worth arguing for.
Well Labor day came, and it was time to do the back half. I decided to do the random pattern. Good thing too, since the roof is 4 inches narrower at the ridge, than at the drip edge. My random pattern does a great job of hiding such roof anomolies.
I am very pleased with the result, And wish I could have used on the front as well. I wounder if there is a FHB story in it. Feel free to ask qestions.
Replies
Honestly, I can't see a difference.
Random is ramdom.
But that doesn't mean that the general subject of layout patterns is not a worthy one for an article, IMO
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Take a look at this picture. This picture was taken from the ridge, with the random pattern in the foreground, and the older kitchen roof further away. The random pattern actually repeats every 10 courses.
The pattern is more dramatic on a rainy day, when the multi-color "shangles all look one solid color from the ground. Add to that the problem of the left rake and the right rake being out of parallel, and the "random pattern" really makes sense. My ridge is 4 inches shorter than the bottom edge, which makes for a really noticable problem with any pattern that shows strong vertical lines.
I like the green carpet. Do you have enough to complete the roof?
That is funny you mention that. The green carpet is actually a scrap of cheap astro-turf. I put it there to protect the roof when I carried shingles up the ladder. I would be so exhausted, I would flop them pretty hard on the roof.
In my youth, I actually could manage to carry 2 bundles; now I have to carry them in half bundles.
This morning, I had an appraiser over, and she asked about the green carpet. I suppose I could take it off.
For anyone who wanted to follow the original discussion about Alternate Layouts for 3 Tab Shingles:
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=42779.1