Why Areshingled Offset On A Roof

On a laminate shingle roof overlooking seemingly small details such as shingle alignment and nailing can lead to serious problems.

Why areshingled offset on a roof.

Old roofs of slate or wood were typically constructed of individual rectangular pieces offset and overlapped to shed water. Shingle is a corruption of german schindle schindel meaning a roofing slate. The first course is the starter course and the last being a ridge course or ridge slates. Occasionally for added ornamentation roofers would insert a few parallel courses of scalloped or beveled tiles into a roof of predominantly rectangular slate tiles.

A roof that isn t installed precisely the way it was intended can be both unattractive and incapable of standing up to extreme weather conditions. Shingles are laid in courses usually with each shingle offset from its neighbors. Also offset joints in successive shake or shingle courses by at least 1 1 2 inches as shown in figure 1 15. Many pros shingle in a vertical line up the roof because it s much faster.

Treat knots and other defects like an edge and offset adjacent courses at least 1 1 2 inches. Known in the trade as vertical racking or staggering this how to lay shingles method enables the roofer to install a single column of shingles all the way to the peak without the wasted back and forth motion necessary to fill several rows of stair steps. These cutouts on the downslope sides of the roof with their erod ed granule less exposed material suggest the cutouts have actually become the water slots for runoff one manufacturer s wrapper in structs the roof may be more.