LESLIE: Art in Pennsylvania is on the line with a question about how to replace roof shingles while working on some storm repair. Tell us what happened.
ART: About a month ago, we had a wind storm and it took off three sections of shingles off of the roof. And I was able to retrieve them. They were, ironically, in pretty good shape.
But I remember seeing a program on PBS where they were redoing homes down in Florida, in the section where they get a lot of storms down there. And I think there is a requirement for the way that shingles are to be installed down there and I’m thinking, if I remember it right – and I didn’t have a chance to see the whole program. But on mine, when I took mine off, there was only like three nails in each of these shingles there. And I think, if I remember correctly, that down there they were requiring that there be more nails than that used to install shingles.
TOM: Well, Art, your goal now is to replace roof shingles that you lost. And did you save the shingles? Were they intact enough to use the actual shingle for the repair? Because this way, the color will match.
ART: Yes. Yes, they were; they were in very good shape, yes.
TOM: Alright. So then what I would do is I’d get back up there and – assuming you can do this safely – and you’ll nail the new shingles back in. You want to put nails – you can put them pretty much where the old nails were but of course, not in the same holes because they’re going to be broken-through now.
You can’t really put too many nails on them. If you want to put an extra nail or two, that’s fine. But the key is after you get done nailing all of these down again, what I want you to do is to get an asphalt cement. And you can get it in a caulking tube and put a little dab under the loose end of the shingles so that the tab presses down and reseals. Because when replace roof shingles with new ones, they have an adhesive on the back of the tab that seals it to the shingle below. But when they’re torn off, that adhesive is gone. So you put a little dab of asphalt cement in there and that will keep it in place and stop it from sort of lifting up the next time you get a strong wind that comes across.
Does that make sense?
ART: OK. Well, I thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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