It's coming. The big one. And all those nail gunned roofs put on this hot summer are in peril. As previously harped upon, the roofing gets very soft when it is new. Asphalt is a frozen liquid. The natural state is liquid but the temperature is a little too low for it to run. But the softening point has been met.
As the Linda Richmond used to say on SNL's Coffee Talk. "like butter."
Remember how your bicycle tires used to pick up the fresh road asphalt and then the rocks? The softening is almost as bad on a roof. The road asphalt is of a little higher quality because it has to take more of a pounding but the basic long chain carbon molecule is the same. The fillers, a word that does not mean what you think it does, are different. But the newer the roof, the softer the asphalt.
Now here comes the driver blade of a roofing nail gun. And all the force is put into the nail and is not stopped by the roofing surrounding it like a hatchet is. What do you want to guess? 200 mph? 300? How about 1400 feet per second. Yee haw mama! Try 954.52 mph. That's the speed of an FFAR 5" Rocket. And the AGM-114 Hellfire. Actually the nail is going 4.52 mph faster than either rocket.
This takes the work out of nailing, the part that keeps the roofing attached to the house. Don't you think that is important? Why do the manufacturers, ARMA, and the NRCA allow pneumatic nailing? Because they put in the caveats about over-driving or driving at an angle, symptoms not possible with a hatchet.
And Holy Moses, try blowing on a roof when it's cold. Crack! No brainer.
Now go measure the thickness of the new roofing on your home. Look to see how over driven the nails are. Just 1/64th of an inch and you are counting on the self seal to keep the roof on until the Great Blow arrives.
And it will. Again. Just like it always does even though it does not always hail. And where a hail damaged roof might not leak, the wind ravaged covering on your home, that protects everything you own, will, especially if the carpetbagger reused the felt, added new felt but didn't install it according to the manufacturer's specs, or just did a shabby job because he thinks the felt is just a temporary covering. If it is then why do the manufacturers ask that the felt goes over the eave metal edge, under the rake metal edge, offer different grades of deck protection, and offer different grades of leak protection (peel and stick).
I stumbled upon this roofing vocabulary list I thought you might enjoy.
Roofing Glossary
Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
2 comments:
Sorry, but it is not the tool. It is always the tool (man) behind the tool. If your roofer is a hack, he is going to do a sloppy job regardless. I have seen too many "hand nailed" jobs that are just as poorly installed as the air tooled job. If your roofer only cares about how many squares he can install, he is a hack. And if your roofer is trying to finish up a job in this heat, he is not only a hack, he is crazy (or maybe an indentured servant).
Personally, my Senco stapler and nailer are tools I would not want to be without.
Ed Senter
The tragedy is the manufacturer's solution to hack roof jobs is to create contact cement as GAF/Elk has done. Now it is impossible to repair these poorly installed roofs because you can't get the shingles to unseal.
Ed Senter
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