We’re looking at a house to buy that has relatively new shingles. The agent thinks they’re only a year or two old. Is there a way to tell good shingles from cheap ones? What should I look for on that roof?
— J.S.
We’re looking at a house to buy that has relatively new shingles. The agent thinks they’re only a year or two old. Is there a way to tell good shingles from cheap ones? What should I look for on that roof?
— J.S.
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Replies
The general rule used to be that a good shingle was heavier.
Though that is still true, there are many more types of shingle to choose from now.
Many roofs now use laminated shingles which generally have a longer warranty than three tab shingles, but not always. I don't know of any reliable way to distinguish between laminated shingles that are on the roof. Even weight can be misleading because fiberglass shingles are lighter than regular asphalt shingles with the same warranty.
If you can inspect the roof, look for wear of the granules, bubbling in the shingle tar, flexibility of the shingles. These areas will indicate the remaining life of the roof but can't tell you much about the quality of the shingles in a relatively new roof.
Sometimes the HO will have a bundle of the shingles in their garage for repairs. You can take the information from the shingle wrapper to a lumber yard and have them tell you about the shingles.
John
Just a thought, if the roof is that new maybe there is some left over shingles laying around somewhere, I always left partial or full bundle when I roofed a house.
Maybe you could find them and take a looksee.
Doug
I like DougU's suggestion - comparing new with installed.
Here's another tip. Shingles wear out by losing their granules. The older the shingles, the more granules are found in the eavestroughs. The composite, tar impregnated portion of a shingle is protected from sun/UV damage by the granules. These granules slowly abrade away over time.
If possible lift a corner of a shingle, if the backside is impregnated with granules thats a good one. 40-50 year shingle.
What's wrong with me? I could ask you the exact same thing.
Thanks, that's the kind of test that I'll be able to use.
-- J.S.
John, you giving up on your apartment building conversion, or finished?
Joe H
John, you giving up on your apartment building conversion, or finished?
Thats what I was wonderin.
Tim
Alas, giving up on it. DW has had it with construction at home, and wants something move-in ready. The new place is the second one to come up for sale across the street from our other house, where her kids live. With my day job moving to the valley, there's no advantage any more to the Hollywood location, except for it being 10 - 15 degrees cooler.
This one is in good shape, looks very well cared for. Design-wise, though, it's a real hodgepodge. The silliest thing is the entrance. You walk up three brick steps to the front door, then onto a 4'x8' piece of platform and down to slab on grade. The current owners don't even use it, they enter thru the attached garage.
-- J.S.
John, sounds like you are describing your next project.
Mine continues too, but we've bought another piece of land west of here to build another if we can sell out of here before the supply of Californians with money dries up.
Joe H
I kinda hope not. If we re-work that entry, the job would just keep getting bigger.
Putting everything back down on grade where it belongs means that we can move the front door from the corner of the sorta-great room to the middle of the wall. In that case, we might as well get rid of the fake foundation brick veneer and re-side that whole wall. Re-side that wall, and we might as well do the rest of the front facing the street. Getting rid of the mix of brick veneer, board and batten, and stucco would be nice. Hardie for the whole thing would go well with the Dutch hip roof. And now we can do what we want with windows while we're at it. With the walls open, of course we need to think about plumbing and electrical.... Do it now, because it would cost a lot more to tear things apart again and do it later.
So, there's a kind of slippery slope from move-in ready to major fixer. ;-)
My approach will be never to touch anything on the house except what DW wants changed. At least this time, it won't be *my* idea.
-- J.S.
Install them and wait 20 years.
Otherwise you can tell that certain shingles are poor quality, but there's no way to be assured that others are good quality.