I hate wind. (Shingle experts please)

So yesterday wind ripped a good portion of our shingles off one side of our roof. Nice.

Is it possible to replace shingles individually? Or since they lay over each other am I stuck with replacing the whole 'panel' at minimum?

I want to go to a metal roof eventually, but of course this happens in winter...

Robbie wrote: Is it possible to replace shingles individually?

Yes. It involves a lot of time and patience.

Basically, you have to carefully lift up the shingle above, pull or cut the nails holding the damaged shingle, slip in a new one, and renail, or seal down with tar.

If you are thinking about a new roof this summer, you could survive by just taking a few tabs of shingles and slipping them under the shingle above and allowing them to overlap the damaged part below, without removing the damage. A dab of tar on the back and they will stay put. They won't look pretty, but they will protect the house and keep the rain out.

Yes and don't try it if it is bitter cold and the shingles are old and you don't have any spares. They will break ask me how I know about that. But it's not too hard when the twmp. Is decent but like SVreX said Br careful. When we had our inspection done our guy said yeah they look pretty good, you should get 10 -15 years out of them. What we didn't know was whoever put them on nailed up towards the top instead of on you know the nailing line. So once in awhile we get a hard wind just right and lose some and I go up and fix them and nail them the right way.

When we had wind damage about 5-8 years ago many of the houses in the neighborhood lost shingles. Some folks just replaced the missing ones and while some of them looked okay at first, you can really tell now. My insurance company paid for a full rip and replace of the old roof because (and I quote) "we wouldn't be able to match the color of the faded shingles". So, you might check your homeowner's policy before you go too crazy. The way ours worked was that they would pay the cost of the "regular" shingles minus our deductible and if we wanted to do anything bigger and better than that, we could pay the difference. I don't know the first thing about roofing so I found a contractor I could trust and told them they could put the best roof on the house that they could talk the insurance company in to, nothing more and nothing less. We wound up with something they called a 30-year dimensional shingle, whatever that is. Based on that experience, I'd guess that you could leverage your homeowner's policy to get the metal roof sooner rather than later.

I'll ditto what wae said.

Call your insurance company. We had a few leaks when the 2 feet of rain fell on South Carolina. I called the insurance company. They said wind and water dammage, have a new roof, no questions asked. They didn't even pro-rate the 15 year old shingles.

This sounds like a time to call in insurance.

I'm a property adjuster down here in FL. I'd call your homeowners carrier. Sounds like wind damage and depending on how many shingles and viability of repair you may get a new roof.

Yah, to me "a good portion" of your shingles implies greater damage than I would want to try to repair piecemeal. I'd call my insurance company.

Just today I was on my roof replacing some singles that were blown off. I was able to get some exact color replacement ones for the damaged/missing ones. I could see where the wind had lifted some shingles by the missing grit where the shingle had kept bending as it lifted. I applies some asphalt cement under them. On the missing shingles I did short cut that as trimming the shingle to slip up under the good ones.

I only had a few pull out. A house down the street which has been empty for a while but has had some work done to it (Like a new roof) lost many shingles. I suspect that the roofing company took some short cuts during the install. Like not removing the plastic strip that covers an asphalt strip on the back side of the shingle that helps stick it to the shingle below. I could see the clear plastic flapping in the wind from some of the shingles. There should not be any if they were pulled off at the time of install.

sounds like what the builders did where I grew up.. An entire development's worth of houses needed new roofs after a Tropical storm, came to find out the crews barely even affixed the shingles to the roof, only using a single nail in each one and not removing the plastic strip.. somebody ate a lot of money as 50+ houses all needed new roofs.. plus all the water damage.

jimbbski wrote: Like not removing the plastic strip that covers an asphalt strip on the back side of the shingle that helps stick it to the shingle below. I could see the clear plastic flapping in the wind from some of the shingles. There should not be any if they were pulled off at the time of install.

That's not the purpose of the plastic strip.

The plastic strip is for shipping purposes only. It prevents the shingles from sticking to each other during shipping.

The tar sealing strip is on the opposite side of the shingles from the plastic strip (the front, not the back). When properly laid, the tar strip on the FRONT of the shingles seals the bottom edge of the NEXT COURSE. The plastic strip is on the back, and is meaningless (it ends up about 5" above the actual tar-sealed edge).

None of the manufacturer's installation instructions include anything about removing the plastic strip.

Well, I went to the Menard's last night to grab some shingles just to cover up the hole in case it rains soon.

Got up on the roof, and of course I bought the wrong kind of shingles (classic). But it did allow me to assess the damage a bit more. Looks like the tar paper underneath is undamaged, so I am less worried about a small amount of rain right now.

I did also call home insurance, and the adjuster should be calling me tomorrow.

In reply to Robbie:

I'm pretty sure I am seeing this right in your picture- Your shingles were nailed improperly.

They were nailed at the top edge of the shingle. Proper nailing is in the center, near the tar strip. This is not in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendation, and MUCH less resistant to wind.

Not sure how insurance would handle this. The whole roof should be renailed and/or replaced.

yes, your whole roof is suspect now.

Came here expecting a thread about 1rst gen Scion xB's, my license plate said IH8WIND. I'll show myself out...

You know we're supposed to get up to 6 inches of snow on Wednesday, right?

slowride wrote: You know we're supposed to get up to 6 inches of snow on Wednesday, right?

Yeah, I saw the forecast. Insurance guy is supposed to be here any minute and I can discuss my options.

To sv and mad, I agree it looks like the shingles are nailed at the top. While technically they are ALSO nailed at the top, it looks to me like that was from nailing the middle of the shingle above. I believe these were nailed in the middle, but I am no expert.

I plan to ask the adjuster what my options are for this situation, and then go from there. If they are just going to get someone to fill in the missing shingles, I can do that tonight or take a half-day tomorrow and splice them in before the snow.

In reply to wae:

Both insurance companies I have used refuse to cover steel roofs in the event of hail damage....might be something to be wary of.

Robbie wrote:

slowride wrote: You know we're supposed to get up to 6 inches of snow on Wednesday, right?

Yeah, I saw the forecast. Insurance guy is supposed to be here any minute and I can discuss my options. To sv and mad, I agree it looks like the shingles are nailed at the top. While technically they are ALSO nailed at the top, it looks to me like that was from nailing the middle of the shingle above. I believe these were nailed in the middle, but I am no expert. I plan to ask the adjuster what my options are for this situation, and then go from there. If they are just going to get someone to fill in the missing shingles, I can do that tonight or take a half-day tomorrow and splice them in before the snow.

Good plan, but don't let him talk you into accepting improper nailing.

Here is a diagram showing the difference:

The middle nails should be BELOW the tar strip, not above. When nailed below the tar strip, every shingle will be nailed at both the top and the bottom.

I was going to say your shingles appear to have been installed improperly (nailing). I do this for a living if you have any more questions about things please PM me off list and I will give you my phone #. This kind of thing is my day job. I design these things and investigate and litigate building envelope failures (amoungst other things)

How old is the roof? Those look like GAF timberline (or similar) architectural shingles.