I remember reading in an issue of fine homebuilding about laying out dimensional shingles, the writer said there was a easy layout that he followed that worked out well.
I can’t remember exactly but he started with a full shingle, then he went to a 30″ shingle, then a 22″. He was stepping them back in a way to limit any kind of pattern from developing.
Does anyone remember this or have any ideas on layout for dimensional shingles, thanks for any help anyone might have.
Helcat
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Replies
Most of the time you step them back at 6'' intervals. 36,30,24,18,12,6. Most manufacturers have it shown on the wrapper of the shingles. I only do it that way on a light colored shingle.
On a dark color, I lay them what I call a ''Builders Run''. They seem to go quicker for me because of less movement back and forth up the roof. ''Builders Run'' meaning step them 36'' and 30'' up the roof in rows. Doing this with a light color shingle and you'll see the steps all the way up the roof.
When I do a builders run, a little trick I do is take an old power saw, mark 6'' on a full bundle a cut the hole bundle. Then alternate with a 30'' shingle and a full one all the way up the rake. Once I have about 10 shingles laid my other guy starts the row next to me( with full shingles ofcourse). This way we're never in each others way and laying them just flows all the way to the top.
Hope I made some sense of that.
Erik
<a little trick I do is take an old power saw, mark 6'' on a full bundle a cut the hole bundle.>
erik- what kind of blade sdo you use on that?"sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
duh..A shingle blade
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Metric shingles are the norm here in the Pacific Northwest. We cut our starters in increments of 5+5/8" less than the one preceeding it, then use the cut offs for finishers on the other end. That way slots on 3 tab don't line up until every...what, 7 corses?
Always chuckle when I read about guys snapping all those lines everywhere...kind of reminds me of using a folding ruler, sheathing walls after you stand them, toenailing the bottoms of studs and strapping ceilings - all stuff I learned in New England and haven't seen done since I left.
Love the old ways, but embrace change when it makes sense.
Jim, before you chuckle too much about snapping lines, let's talk.
You know that I've worked roofs for twenty years in many parts of the country, alone and with crews.
Most shingles do have alignment marks build into each shingle so between that and roofing hatchets with gauges, it is easy to lay a straight roof with no lines, but one of the facts of human nnature and accomplishment is that everyone will see and set to the tick maks differently. If you have three guys working the same section of a large roof, you are very likely to have sloppy lines where the same guy running all the shingles on that section can end up nice and straight. So with a larger crew than two men ( one on each side of the roof) it is more efficient to snap the lines. A crew of three can mark and snap chaulk lines on a whole thirty square roof in fifteen minutes.
So a fast shingle layer can maybe lay a bundle of shingles in that time, you think? so production is lost for that improvement in neatnes and appearance. I know you care enopugh about your work to make that investment but don't even nbother thinking that, because the fact is, that you can set to lines faster than setting to tick marks in most cases, so the net time installing those thirty squares is actually less, for an experienced crew.
Woreking alone, the variables are different. The one man can easily keep his aliognment readings equal and do a good job, and if he were to snap lines on the whole roof, he would need to tack nails in the mark every five inches or 5-5/8" and then walk back and forth across the roof for a couple hours to get his lines laid.
Be open to all the options. Methods change as the variabnles change, in oder to improve both efficiency and quality.
Then, there are the regional differences. In the northern parts of the country, roofers generally sit or crawl on the shingles just laid, working up the roof in fron of themselves, because it keeps the work at a convenient height relative to their body, and because they can - the shingles are normally not so hot that they get destroyed by being on them, and because roofs are steeper in the north, typically. But down south, you might get fired for positioning your body that way. It gets so hot that asphalt shingles are about as floppy and easy to damage as weet toilet paper sometimes. The rule is do not walk on the shingles after they have been laid. We squated and duck walked to shingle down south. That regional varience made it easier to see a chaulk line at top of shingle than any indicator at the side or center of shingle.
I don't even want to imagine how you guys can think about shingling in the PNW where it rains - what, maybe 362 days a year? You must have some special tricks to deal with that, like a certain sunshine mantra? I imagine that it would be hard to snap lines on wet tarpaper....
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Yeah, I see your points. Good call. The truth is, the one time in the past 20 years I had to go back and pull off a bunch of shingles the next morning because they weren't straight enough was when I had two new helpers and our hatchet guages weren't set precisely enough.
jim... the only time i got into a dispute with a homeowner was over roof shingles..
my two guys had 40 years roofing between the two of them.. as they went up the steep-pitched roof they were thumbing the butts to the architectural laps..
all -in-all they were actually adding about 3/8 to each course.. the owner didn't like it and Elk backed him up ..
now we snap lines.. no matter how good anyone thinks they are.. i want something everyone on the crew can follow the same wayMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
"our hatchet guages weren't set precisely enough.":
now there is another good point. Every brand of roofers hatchet can have a variance in the gauge size, and I have wo AJCs - one worn down and the other new, taht are almost an eighth of an inch in difference. Also, some brands have a sliding gauge instaed of set to holes in the blades, so camparisons are always in order when working together.
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The method I use on standard shingles are 6" increments for my books. When I lay out to get started though, I snap a line 11 1/4" up from the drip and the same on the rake. I use left over 3-in-1's for starters around the bottom and up the rakes. The starter up the rake gives you a good clean line and something to lay out to. As far as snapping lines all the way up, I like to snap lines on the plywood to set the felt to.
Pull down off the first sheet 16" for the first course of felt, run the next course flush with the top of the next sheet of plywood. It uses a little extra felt paper but anyone can follow it because the lines on the felt give you a reference.
That's a new one on me. i've never seen paper with the lines at 5" intervals. The lines on any tarpaper I have ever seen was for rolling the paper at single ply, double ply, or triple ply.
To make a run with the satandard pattern of six inch ofsets on three tabs, I always measure in from the rake some multiple of the length, say nine feet or twelve feet, and a second line at six inches less, then lay both ways from the line. Any crew of four men is bound to have one southpaw on it to lay the backwards portion .
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Piff,
I only use the lines on the felt for a reference. Since the felt was installed straight with the sheeting, how far off can it be?
So what you are saying is that you are not laying to the line but using it to parralleel the shingle to by eyeball, right?
Some of the cheaper brands of felt can have somepretty snakey lines
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Working alone and my eyes being not as good as they used to I came up with a faster solution then the old fashioned way of marking lines. FHB printed my idea in the may 04 issue on page 34. If you don't have the issue here's an attachment in microsoft of the page.
I'm curious to you opinion of this.Thanks
Bob
sorry check the post below
Edited 7/17/2004 10:50 pm ET by JAGWAH
Edited 7/17/2004 10:57 pm ET by JAGWAH
bob, i couldn't open your xxx.doc.... i think it's a MSWord 97 , right ?
anyways, easiest thing for me to open is a xx.jpg..... can you convert it ?Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Here's that file as a jpg
mmm, thanks...
bob.... works for you, great !
for me.. blue chalk shows up fine and everyone has it in their pouch.. if we make a mistake we resnap with red....
if we're working with light shingles we'll use white chalkMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
It's not so much the chalk lines that are hard to see it's the pencil mark you have to layout to and the issue of pulling the tape up from the starter course. How many times I've cussed my tape as it pulled off or lifted the shingle.
But I do agree yellow or whit are great chalk colors.
I don't trust red around my helpers, sooner or later they will chalk something they shouldn't like finish concrete.
Edited 7/17/2004 11:03 pm ET by JAGWAH
I've used that tip on the last two roofs I've done. It works out pretty good.
Thanks!
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Thank you. I certainly like my idea a lot. On a couple of roofs I've had to mark the tapes,like Piffin said, almost every course. It's still easier to mark the tape on the ground then the roof. Besides I can give my boys a bunch of tapes that I marked all the same and know that different people using different tapes and different roofing hatchets or pneumatics won't be winding up all squirrelly.
Well they are squirrelly but that's a different matter.
"Well they are squirrelly but that's a different matter."
I had one guy who, even with the chalked line, couldn't lay the shingles straight.
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Not a bad idea. When you going to market the roofers tape. I would be really handy for the metric sizing! I never used a pencil to make the hatchmarks for the cahulklines. I used a utility knife, laying blade on side to scratch the paper without cutting it. That show up better most of the time than pencil does.
but I also never could get the idea of marking at every sixth course or every 40" or whatever. If I am going to get off layout, it will start to happen within two or three courses and be bad by time I get 40" so a correction course shows up worse. I do the lines at least every ten inches or not at all.
Too bad the eyes are going just as the goirls start to look cuter. I guess we'll just have to use our imaginations
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Concerning snapping lines on wet tarpaper: The paper is usually puckered, so you end up with a dotted line and after snapping one or two lines your chalk line is pretty much ruined. We've had trouble too, in hot sun with the lines fading. Seemed like blue was worst if I remember right. We used orange and that held up well. Good trick that I tried to get people I worked with to use but lots of times they wouldn't is to hook two lines together--as one guy reels in it pulls out the other guy's line, and you take turns that way as you go up the roof. Saves lots of time. The other thing is to just snap lines every 15" or so as a backup reference for just using the tabs. The important line for us was a vertical near the center, snapped at 90 degrees from the eve using the 3-4-5 right triangle method. On big roofs we'd work from the center and pyramid toward each rake, putting the edge and then the little cut alternately against the line. That way when someone standing on the ground looks up, he doesn't see a wandering line of tabs. Sometimes we'd do two lines and just but the edges against one and then the other. (lines of chalk, not that nasty stuff--two lines of the other and who knows what your shingling would look like! (I'm anticipating some of you out there!))
>> Good trick that I tried to get people I worked with to use but lots of times they wouldn't
>> is to hook two lines together--as one guy reels in it pulls out the other guy's line, and
>> you take turns that way as you go up the roof.
Send it in to FHB! That is a genius idea. That's so good it would make it almost worth being a boss so you could tell guys, my way or the highway. Of course, you would want to have the chalk boxes with the high speed takeup reels.
dunc.. the last Certainteed newsletter featured double chalklines.. they're already on the market.. apparently commercial roofers have been using them for yearsMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Well I think he should send it in anyway. After all, how many of us read the Certainteed newsletter, or hang out with commerical roofers?
Just last week I was reading somebody had written in to FHB or FWW complaining about them publishing a tip that was a duplicate of a commercially available product. The tips editor responding basically asking, "So what?" The magazines have never required that the tips be original. Lots of people send in tips that they learned from some crusty old craftsman forty years ago, and nobody objects to those.
just to chime in
I always snap a center line and a line 6'' one way or the other..keeps the rakes even from side to side, no little 1/2'' tabs to blow away.
starter line at 11 .5 up and next at 16.5,21.5,26.5 all the way.
a foam couch cushion is fantastic to walk,kneel,sit plop the gun on..they DONT slide. I am using( 4) 1'' thick pads 2'x2' on the cedar roof 12/12..and can set a bundle on a pad and it stays put..same with the gun, and my butt..really helps on the hot paper, and slick cedar breather..the DW picked up the foam at Wally world for like 2 bucks.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
I wrote this in response to another thread about walking on a steep roof: my old boss told me about using foam. He said his brother even folded it up around his legs and tied them on and walked around on roofs that way! Never tried that, but did stand on it and it does work. (At least up to about 12/12.)
I remember shingling these new crazy roofs that were 12/17 and 12/21 and so on--more like trying to shingle a wall. Definitely had to use planks on jacks.
On some jobs, the boss would lift plywood with several dozen bundles of shingles to the roof using his lift truck. That was real nice. Also was easier when he did that for sheathing--had a nice platform to do the cutting from as well. Had to be careful when down to jsut plywood that you didn't step out on the edge and tip it off the forks--did that a couple times, but always got back before it fell.
To give credit where credit is due, I think I found that idea in FHB magazine! I had trouble convincing the boss or crew of lots of things, for instance, that blunting the nail or rubbing it against your nose (for oil) would make it less likely to split thin wood. One time the boss told me to make saw horses (usually just about the first thing we did on a new job, along with making a "table" for the miter saw). I made the horses so the legs angled out front and back. He almost made me do them over. He said, "You've seen me make saw horses enough, you should have known how to make them--you make the legs straight up and down." I said something more diplomatically but amounting to, "I was tired of picking plywood out of the hole after we loaded 8 or ten sheets on a horse and then the horse racked and down it all went." So he allowed me to use the splay-legged horses (also an idea from FHB), but when he made the next set, he went back to the sraight-legged kind. I'd only worked as a carpenter for a year at this point, so I guess I can understand their suspicion.
I used to even bring the magazine to my boss and let him keep it. Tell him there was a real good idea on how to do whatever. He'd bring it back the next day, undoubtedly unread, and without comment hand it back to me.
Guy I work for now is much the same. Kind of, if I want your opinion I'll beat it out of you.
Ya, my stepson is out in Idaho now framing on log homes. ( Don't ask me to define that phrase for job description) He mentioned FHB and they had never heard of it out there. After describing it one day at lunch, they kind of gave a group shrug and a comment that it was probably just a bunch of eastern Volvo driving puzzeees that published it so they wouldn't be able to learn anything from it.
Sometimes, I wonder what is worst, the idiocy or the lunacy...
;)
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Yeah, and the ignore-ance. I know that a lot of what you read in books and mags can be garbage, but what's the harm in considering an idea? If you've had any experience, you should be able to judge if it makes sense without having to do it. But everywhere I've worked, even with young people in schools, I get this immediate dismissal of an idea without even thinking about it. Guess they feel threatened. It's like the idea is contaminated with evil and that if they even allow it to enter their consciousness for one split second they're doomed.
no chalk lines on a 3 tab roof no wonder your slots only line up every 7 courses and those probably even drift. I use lines to keep my lackeys following my starters running straight. For the amount of time it takes to snap out a roof to run straight to a ridge and keep the slots straight I think its worth it.
A regular framing blade. Once the blade starts to cut like $hit I save them and put them on a ''beater saw''. I use the ''beater saw'' for cutting through sheathing and shingles when we rip a roof for dormers, addlevels,etc. Then the blade is usually smoked and I just toss em' and load another old blade.
"erik- what kind of blade sdo you use on that?"
rez- if I were to do that, I would use an NFG blade
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if I were to do that, I would use an NFG blade
That would be a new DeWalt, then, right? Or Oldhambone? Or Crapsman?
I never met a tool I didn't like!
stair step pattern avoids crotch cutouts lining up.
use roofing hatchet with gauge. Five inches up and five over. In other words, starting on the rake, you cut off five inches, then ten, then fifteen....
or if metric sized, lay at 5.5" up and 5.5" over.
To lay without the gauge, you chalk lines on the underlayment tarpaperevery five inches up from top of first shingle and then run a 45° diagonal chaulk line from corner of the first shingle and set top corners to it. There are all sorts of patterns guys use, but this one works easy on the body, and whatever you do, you do not want to ever have the crotch lines closer than 4"
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Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
If you want to have a chance at having a hassel free warranty, read the instructions on the wrapper then follow them. I believe the ones we use here go: full shingle, 28", 21", 15" and 8" causing a stair step effect. You have no waste using these lengths on 36" shingles.
kcoyner
"If you want to have a chance at having a hassel free warranty, read the instructions on the wrapper then follow them."
LOL I thought I had clicked the concrete flatwork warranbttee thread right next to this one. i figured I had a wise crack here for a second or two...
;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Yep. That's how I do it too. Gotta love them architectural shingles, huh?
Like the Piff-Master said, books of 5s on the three tabs!