4 Mistakes Everyone Makes When Installing New Shingles

Installing new roofs and replacing the old ones is essential to maintain your roof's protection, safety, and health and your house. Still, to ensure these advantages, you must avoid some common mistakes to save your time, money, and house.

Making these mistakes while installing new shingles to your house will be more dangerous than protecting your house from external and internal damage. It can create holes in the shingles, increase the house's temperature, and may lead to corrosion of the new shingles.

4 Mistakes Everyone Makes Installing New Shingles

The mistakes people make while installing new roof shingles are as follows, and they must be avoided for the safety and protection of your house:

1. Not removing the old shingles
2. Poor ventilation system
3. Incorrect Placement of roofing nails
4. Securing of Flashings

• Not Removing The Older Ones:

While installing new roof shingles, many people do not remove the older ones. Most contractors will make you believe that covering the old shingles with new ones will save both time and money, but it is not true. Not removing the older layer while installing a new one is like making a sandwich of a fresh bread slice and one with fungus.

If you do not remove old shingles and layer them up with your new roof shingles to save time and money, it will also cause serious damage to the roof and the shingles. So it is advised not to make this mistake because it will rather waste more of your time and money.

• Poor Ventilation System:

Mostly, the low-cost roofings have a poor ventilation system. Get your roofing shingles installed by an expert contractor. It will have proper attic ventilation necessary for your home because if it is not properly ventilated, it will become so hot and can damage the roof and ultimately increase the temperature of your house inside.

A proper ventilation system is very important for your house's health to prevent moisture buildup on the roof. Your roofs can fall otherwise. A new roofing system must include a ridge vent, eave vent, and baffles for proper ventilation of your house.

• Placement Of Roofing Nails:

The most common mistake people make while installing new singles is the incorrect placement of nails. The shingles that come up with nails have proper guidelines to be followed, and these mistakes include:

• Nails above sealing strip
• Nails hammered into gaps of the roof deck
• Too small nail heads
• Using too short nails for installing shingles.

Installing nails of the correct length is very important because if the nails of mismatched length are used, it may loosen the roof of your house's shingles and cause severe damage. Another mistake while placing the nails is not to place them under the shingles, and when they are exposed outside, there are more chances of corrosion. Corroded nails can create holes in the shingles, and the roof will ultimately be damaged.

• Securing Of Flashing:

Flashing is a thin material installed on the roof to keep the water away, as standing water can damage your roof. It is advised to install flashings to protect vents, chimneys, skylights, etc. There are various types of flashings like:

• Base flashing
• Continuous flashing
• Counter Flashing
• Step Flashing

Flashing plays an important role in maintaining and protecting your roof and house. Not only is installing new flashing every time enough, but it is important to install it correctly. If the roof's flashings are not positioned correctly, it cannot protect your roof against damage, rain, and other harsh weather circumstances, and there would be no use in installing them.

Conclusion:

Installing roofing shingles to your house roof makes it extra protection. It keeps your roof and house safe from harsh weather conditions and other internal and external damages, but that does not mean you have to install the shingles and trust your contractors blindly, as there are certain rules t be followed while doing this. 

The most common mistakes people make while getting new shingles installed is that they do not remove the older ones, position the flashings, wrong Placement of the nails, and have a poor ventilation system. It will help if you avoid these mistakes while getting new shingles for your house, as these mistakes can lead you to further and severe damage instead of protecting the house.