Tar and Shingles

As promised, here is the continuation of the roof project. When I moved into my new house I scoured the place for all that was left behind. In the crawl space under the house were several rolls of tar paper, stacks of shingles, insulation rolls, even some joint compound.

I found out after starting that each roll of tar paper had about 50 feet on them and it took 3 and a half shingles to make a 10 foot row. In all it took three rolls of tar paper and 3 and a half boxes of shingles for my 8x14 shed with two overhangs.

No power tools needed for this! Just a sharp knife, a measuring tape, pencil, T-square, stapler gun, and a box of staples for the tar paper. Almost the same except instead of staples, a hammer and a mess of 3/4" roofing nails with a needle nose pliers to hold the nails to do the shingles. It took me one day to do tar paper and shingle half the roof and the half the next day to finish the shingles. This is my first roof too.

First, if you don't have it already, a drip ledge is needed all around the roof. I got 4 pieces of 10 foot 2x2 and 2 pieces of 10 foot 2x4 ones that were pre-colored brown since my shingles are brown. They are very light and easy to cut with a hand held tin snips. The wider ones are for the bottoms where the rain will run down and the skinnier ones for the sides. Just put them on your edges, the little flip goes down, mark the edge with a pencil and use tin snips to cut. Then I used roofing nails, about every two feet to attach them. This is how I learned to hold the nails with needle nose pliers to hammer. I have small fingers and was nervous.

Holding 3/4 inch nail with needle nose pliers to nail.

Now for the tar paper. I already knew I had a 10 foot wide roof but was not sure of the length so took my handy measuring tape and measured, also had an overhang on the other side of the roof to measure. I started on the easy square side of the roof.  I measured out two pieces to go vertical on the sides of the roof first. That way I have extra protection in case I cut the horizontal ones too short.  I put my measuring tape on the ground and locked it where my measurement was and rolled out the tar paper to that. Then with my T-square at the measurement I used a sharp knife to score it and then starting sawing with it to get my cut.

Throw the pieces up on the roof and make some of the horizontal ones and throw those pieces up too. Now armed with my apron for easy pockets for my staples and staple gun I throw myself on the roof.  Start with the verticals, then the bottom piece, then align the next pieces to one of the lines on the tar paper. I used one about a foot down. Staple in the wood not the drip ledge and just go all around the edges. You can go a bit over the ridge or leave off right before the ridge. Then repeat on the other side. At the end put one more piece on the middle of the ridge. Done!

For shingles, put stacks every few feet on the roof and fill your pockets with roofing nails. Start at the bottom corner again and just do a pinky finger over the bottom edge and flush at the side. Nail two inches above the overlap line, every six inches and I put an extra one at the edges. Make the row. When you get to the end take a shingle and flip it upside down and score with your knife about two inches more than you need and cut. I tucked the ripped up edge a little under my last shingle to hide it. I had to sharpen my knife three times since tar is so thick and sticky. I save my cut pieces for the start of every other row and overlap a full shingle on top to hide my poor cuts. You need to get good before the ridge pieces at the end unless you have special ridge pieces.

Stop your shingle rows before the ridge and go start at the bottom of the other side. Keep going. When you get to the ridge I had one side right up to it and one a little short so I put one more row and nailed it over the ridge. Then I cut my full shingles into thirds hamburger style and started at one end and overlapped these pieces 50% making like a stack of tipped over poker chips. I nailed four nails across at about 40% of the width so the next piece would hide the nails. At the end you are stuck. There are going to be nails showing and I had some Henry's asphalt patch leftover that I put on the nail heads just to be extra cautious. Done! I swept off the roof, shimmied down and took down my scaffold. Good thing too because it rained last night after a week of beautiful 70 degree weather.