Roofing Shingles FAQ’s
Most homes have roofing shingles, but most homeowners don’t spend much time thinking about them. The purpose of roofing shingles are to provide a single layer solution to a leak proof top for a home or structure. Roofing shingles are laid from the bottom edge of the roof upward, with each higher row overlapping the lower row. Traditionally shingles were made of wood and were capped at the top with a row of copper or lead sheeting. In modern shingle roofs this is replaced by a row of roofing shingles that includes a plastic underlay.
Back to the make up of roofing shingles, wood was considered good. But eventually asphalt and asbestos cement replaced wood as common materials. Fiberglass asphalt shingles are now the most popular roofing shingle used in the United States. Wood and paper backed roofing shingles have fallen out of use due to their susceptibility to fire.
There’s another type of roofing shingle that many people have seen but few would be able to name. This roofing shingle is named a shake, which is a wooden shingle made from split logs. Shake roofs were commonly used in building log cabins, and with many wood frame homes. They’re still in use today, most commonly cut on site then transported by helicopters, but it wasn’t always done that way. Shakes were tied into packs and transported by pack animals, or even people, before helicopters were invented. Often cut in hilly areas, they were carried down the slope with the help of a long line run from the bottom to the top. This line served as a hand hold so people carrying the shake packs wouldn’t fall.
Many people wonder what is the difference between a shingle and a tile. Tiles are generally made from ceramic. They’re brittle and ill suited to locations where tree limbs might fall on a roof. Shingles are flexible and therefor better able to stand up to tree limbs. Wood shingles rot, while ceramic tiles don’t, but modern materials such as the asbestos base for most shingles don’t rot. Another difference is in the shape. Roofing shingles are flat, while ceramic tiles commonly have an “S” profile to allow them to interlock for strength.
Believe it or not slate is also used for roofing shingles. Because of both cleavage and grain slate can be easily split into thin sheets. Such sheets, the slate roofing shingles, make for an antique look for a roof. Slaters, tradesmen trained to work with slate, cut and install slate roofing shingles. The same qualities that make slate excellent for roofing shingles, it is fireproof and an electric insulator, made it useful for early twentieth century switchboards and relay controls on large electric motors. Imagine that, making a phone call on your roofing shingles.
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