slight OT - remove plastic film strip from asphalt shingles?

That's why you don't have to remove the plastic strip.

Robert

Yup. My brother-in-law has a roofing business and assures me that that is the purpose. If you look at how they stack, that agrees with the theory. It's only there for shipping purposes; nothing lines up with it that you don't want sticking together once it's staggered on the roof.

Don't do it. It doesn't help anything, and wastes time. Think about it

- you _want_ the shingles to melt together under the hot sun to form a better seal.

Right. Happily, the easy thing and the right thing are the same in this case. Nice when that happens, isn't it?

Dave Hinz

That was the bizarre part - there were no instructions. Googled and lots of instructions for shingling, silence on the tape - I assumed if it had to be removed they would point that out, but kind of hard to do once they're down!! I figure very few homeowners nowadays do there own shingling, so why bother with instructions, although there is plenty of space. The pros would know.

Left them on, finished the job in a morning.

well, you should have removed them. Once they have been removed, and the shingles get hot on the roof, that asphalt strip melts into the shingle it is touching making for a much stronger bond. Oh well.

You need to go look at where that asphault strip lines up on the row below it (hint: not on the plastic strip or anywhere near it).

Indeed.

I worked as a roofer for about 6 years. That strip you're referring to is a reinforcement strip used to give the nails (staples when I was doing it) better hold-down qualities. You're not supposed to peel anything off. There will be a row of what looks like dashes along the bottom of the shingles. These globs heat up in the sun allow the shingles to stick to eachother. This is very important in windy conditions. I've seen entire roofs blow off in the cold because the roof was newly added and they didn't have a chance to "bond" yet.

I > I seem to recall the last time I did a roofing job (11 years ago), I

When my 14-year-old tab shingle roof began to peel away in recent windstorms, I also wondered if that strip should have been removed when the roof was installed. As I looked at the torn shingles, I saw the remnants of these strips, which peeled off very easily. But now I see this definition of "release tape" on a roofing glossary at

- A plastic or paper strip that is applied to the back of self-sealing shingles. This strip prevents the shingles from sticking together in the bundles, and need not be removed for application.