Why we strike lines!

We did a repair this morning on a roof that is about 10 years old. These are the pictures I sent to the contractor of the unit we roofed around, but look at the last few pictures. They lost 5 1/2 courses of shingles along the top of the ridge, most of it in the last 40 feet. Why?

https://picasaweb.google.com/crookston.john4/SororityHouse?authkey=Gv1sRgCJaiiLbMhIbqYw#5779283209955516434

YEP,,We did

They just ran wild on that one. The new roof was straight.

BTW, I always pop lines for at least the last ten feet so my ridge shinlge always comes out 2" from the apex.

tinner666 Said: Before digital and before I had a good camera, there was a little house I always wondered about. About 35 long. 12/12 pitch. Two standard dormers, about 4-5 from each end. Less than 9 between them, but they managed to need 3 more rows in between them! Last 8-9 courses had such a sag! They lost about 12-18 right in the center. GO figure. :woohoo:

we dont do 3-tabs anymore not for about 18yrs around here,the only time there on the roof is for caps...but when we did we would put 2 lines vertically on each side of dormer..

As long as you can keep them straight. By the way, how do you lay out 3-1's going over a dormer like that, so that the cutout line up correctly?

and old skool..yes we know before we start if roof is out of wack..and proceed as needed..

we put one line above dormer and work up both sides to the line..works everytime...

I've asked shinglers here the same question OS. I get that "figgin' guy is an idiot" look and then I realize that I am prolly looking right at the guy that is way off at the ridge sometimes..............or throwing up short courses around dormers.

I had a "sub" crew do a job last year and I was up there when the chief engineer tied the courses together coming across a dormer. I asked him about a tape measure. Of course he did not need one. I got that "friggin' guy is an idiot look" . He was "eyeballing it". 30 yrs. or so experience ya know :dry:

After about 3-- 5" (or so) courses (and rippin' a few back out) he had e'm going again.

I accepted this knowing that it was only about 3 more shingles to the next hip, no ridge and he was not going to lay waste to a full roof section......or changes his ways on my account. B) The whole wrestling with a pig in the mud syndrome.

Kage does a nice job without lines, most people can't. Maybe the question is not about lines, but about measuring! How good is good enough? If you are working on a roof, within an 1/8 inch is damn good. if you are bolting something together and you are using 1/2 inch bolts and someone gives you 5/8" nuts, that 1/8" makes all the difference in the world.

When i work on a roof, I know before I start where everyting is going to lie. I don't guess or fix it part way. I do the same thing when framing, when tiling and when slating. When I go over the top of a dormer, the coursing always lines up and it is the same between all of the dormers no matter where they are. I measure and make it so.

Kage, I like your roofs. The question I have is, if a roof is way out of wack, do you know it before you get to the top? How do you lay it out? The funny part of all of this is that the way to check if you rreally have a straight roof is to check it with a chalk line. I just do it before I start. I know I am not that good, but I sure know how to read a tape and I am good at math.

The guys that did the shingling on the pictures I posted here hadn't a clue, and they didn't care. Nothing would have helped them and if they had struck lines, they would not have followed them anyway.

If you read my post, I said, "this is why I strike lines"

Since I don't do comp, I'm neutral about it. It seems to me that the no-line guys could prove to themselves that they don't need it by breaking out the chalkline every once-in-awhile and verifying how straight it is or isn't.

Usually when laying out for tile, I put the bottom course batten on first and measure from there up to the ridge to get my spacing. It's not unheard of to find the ridge not completely parallel to the eave. In those cases, I want to know that before I layout any other courses. I wouldn't want to learn of it just when I've laid everything up to a couple of feet from the top.

Didn't we beat this horse to death back in 2006? :laugh:

ditto here

HAVE never had that problem, we dont use lines, the only line we use is putting on the underlayment, and we work in pairs, and if the building is outta wack then we'll use a line...otherwise no lines and all our roofs are staight..

What it comes down to is I'd rather my guys spend a few minutes making sure that it's straight so they can keep their mind on things like hitting that almost fictional nail line.

And I know it's possible, and its quite easy if you are doing the whole section yourself. We normally work in pairs though, and I just don't trust anybody else to keep it straight coming out of a valley or going around things. Or compensating for a bad frame job. Or how bout all the times where two areas of roof coincide and you don't want half a shingle exposure.

This could be a new great controversy