The Problems With Stapling Shingles

Staples may be the nearly convenient style to attach staples to a roof, merely they're far from the best way. Larn more than near the potential problems of stapled shingles here.

While information technology used to be mutual do to use staples to adhere asphalt shingles to a roof, this has been a prohibited method of attachment in Minnesota since 2003.  Today, staples are considered an inferior method of attaching shingles to a roof, but it's easy to understand why roofers similar staples.

• Staple guns are smaller and better balanced.  Coil nail guns are literally fed with a coil of nails, and the holder for the nails makes the gun much bulkier.
• Staples are far less decumbent to jamming upwardly in a gun than nails.
• Staples cost less money.
• Staples are much more compact; a roofer can concur a bunch of sticks of staples in their pocket and reload their gun very quickly.  Nail coils take upwardly a lot more space, they take more time to reload, and they need to be treated advisedly; if a coil of nails gets dropped or stepped on, information technology deforms the coil and makes information technology much more prone to jamming in the gun.

Staples are used because they make the roofer's job easier; they don't equate to a meliorate installation.

The problem with stapled shingles is that they take a much greater chance of coming loose or blowing off the roof because staples are then easy to install improperly.  When a roofer holds a staple gun and fastens a shingle, the staples will have a tendency to be driven at an improper angle.

Staples are often improperly installed because it's somewhat awkward to hold a staple gun completely perpendicular to the shingle.  For someone who is right handed, it'due south much easier to shoot the staples on the left side of their torso at an angle similar to a forward slash, and the staples on the right side at an angle like to a astern slash.  The two super-crude diagrams below should assistance to illustrate what I'k talking almost.

When staples are installed properly, they work fine, but they're just besides easy to install wrong.  This issue doesn't happen with nails, because they take a round head; as long as a nail is driven in to a shingle directly, it doesn't matter which way the smash gun is turned.  To know if a roof has been installed with staples, you lot can sometimes run into the outline of the staples pushing through the shingle above.

Also notice, these staples aren't perpendicular to the shingle.  This is the installation trouble that typically happens with staples.

If you lot have a roof that's been installed with staples, is it a defective installation?  If it was installed subsequently 2003, technically yep, because staples aren't allowed any more.  If every staple was perfectly installed, the installation would work simply as well equally perfectly installed nails, but I've found improperly installed staples at every stapled roof I've inspected.   If you lot take a roof with stapled shingles, you don't need to supercede the shingles every bit a rule of pollex, simply you're taking on some risk.  If shingles start blowing off on a regular basis, you'll probably desire to have the roof roofing replaced.  This will be less costly and less of a hassle in the long run than having to deal with abiding roof repairs.

When I inspect a house with shingles that have been improperly installed, I tell the aforementioned thing to my buyers; the shingles don't need to be replaced, just they might cause some headaches.  If shingles take already started coming loose and obvious repairs have been made, I typically recommend replacement of the roof covering.

P.Due south. – Special thanks to roof guru and young man abode inspector Mike Moser for ever knowing the answer to any technical roofing question right off the top of his caput.

Reuben Saltzman is the President of Structure Tech Home Inspections

collinscapper1986.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/the-problems-with-stapling-shingles/