In the UK shingles is a type of disease. I imagine roofing tiles made of wood came about due to the it's cheap availability; we'd use slate or tiles, neither of which rot. Older roofing methods involved thatch or turf, but without constant maintenenace) there are few left nowadays. We
RicodJour wrote: ...
IMO (having many buildings using them) the primary benefit of sawn shingle over a shake or riven shingle is that they lay much flatter so on slatted roof w/o underlayment (the traditional installation), they protect against wind-driven snow far better.
I made mistake on re-roof of the barn to use shakes instead owing to local supplier being out of enough stock on hand late in season (had had a major hailstorm that had caused very high demand in town but by time I was ready to start that year the demand had gone down and they didn't want to order a full truckload w/ nowhere to store over winter) made me a "deal" on 1/2" shakes at $95/sq instead of nearly $300/sq for the 75 sq needed on special order.
Was a mistake; KS winter snow blows even though is water tight otherwise...
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It is a type of disease in the United States. It's also a roofing material.
Isn't English wonderful?
Most structures around during current generations lifetimes will be sawn tapered shingles. You won't find hand or machine split non-tapered stuff unless you visit some historic site that does true to history construction. True hand split shakes used in the 16-1700s were not tapered. Tapering isn't hard BUT it was probably discovered by accident all you really need to do to taper a hand split shake is to flip the block end for end as you split each shake. I somewhat doubt this was something that old Jedidiah bothered with when he was building his cabin in the woods. In areas that had access to water power and a place to set up a mill they would have probably had machine split for a while, until someone figured out how to use a saw and make the job a bit less dangerous for the operator.
Sawing allows for all the above, BUT split shakes were around LONG before they even thought about sawn shakes. As for knots, they were used regardless, as long as the knot was not in the face area on the shake it didn't make much difference for the undercourse. Same with warped/twisted grain, saws allowed that wood to be used. Splitting didn't.
Do split shingles last longer than sawn? I wonder if that absence of exposed grain ends on the surface helps prevent water penetration.
#1 shingles will be of equal duration as shakes of same material and quality and initial butt thickness. Key is comparing equal amount of material; shakes generally are 1/2" or even thicker; a "fivex" is 5/2" or just a little over 3/8" so there's less material.
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2"/5 R
Wrote 5/2" as short for "5 shingles per 2" total thickness", not as a quotient...but, 2"/5 is the fractional way to determine that they're nominal minimal 0.40" each, indeed...
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Yes, I realized that, and I was just clarifying it for posterity. ;)
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