Worker nailing shingles quickly - GIF

[Altair]

Worker nailing shingles quickly.




Previously:

Roofing material ladder elevator - GIF
Roofing nail removal tool - GIF
Roof snake for shingle repairs - GIF
How wood shingles are made - GIF
Making shingles with a froe - video
Antique asbestos shingle cutter - photo

[nova_robotics]

Impressive, but also looks like a man who does not take pride in his work.

[Frank S]

Impressive, but also looks like a man who does not take pride in his work.

How much pride can there be in a roof that won't even last through a single severe hailstorm? We bought a house sometime around 1992, the ins, inspector came out and said the roof only looks to be a couple years old so we were able to get ins. the next spring a hailstorm beat the hell out of it. The ins. replaced it, then raised our rates 2 years go by another hailstorm, this time with high winds. Roof still under full warrantee, The roofing company came out to "REPAIR". Instead I paid the difference to have steel strips screwed into the rafters and a steel roof installed The only problem was I had to get a variance from the stupid city because only commercial buildings were allowed steel roofs. Their argument was my roof would look out of place because it would not be like everyone else's, like I really cared.

[nova_robotics]

How much pride can there be in a roof that won't even last through a single severe hailstorm? We bought a house sometime around 1992, the ins, inspector came out and said the roof only looks to be a couple years old so we were able to get ins. the next spring a hailstorm beat the hell out of it. The ins. replaced it, then raised our rates 2 years go by another hailstorm, this time with high winds. Roof still under full warrantee, The roofing company came out to "REPAIR". Instead I paid the difference to have steel strips screwed into the rafters and a steel roof installed The only problem was I had to get a variance from the stupid city because only commercial buildings were allowed steel roofs. Their argument was my roof would look out of place because it would not be like everyone else's, like I really cared.

Huh. That's weird. We don't have hail here so it's never really been something I've considered. So hail chews up asphalt shingle roofs? And the city gives you grief about steel roofs? Crazy stuff. It's pretty much the wild west around here. Anything goes. If you wanted a roof made of diced lions nobody would have a single word to say about it.

[old kodger]

Frank,
Looks like your council has heard the song "Little boxes on a hillside and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same".

[ACinSV]

Frank,
Looks like your council has heard the song "Little boxes on a hillside and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same".

Hah! I live right near Daly City (just south of San Francisco), which is the town of "little boxes, little boxes" (and they all do in fact look just the same, at least from a ways away; I'm sure if yer actually living in one, it looks a bit different from yer neighbor's, 'specially over time... :-)

That-all said: I'm taking a guess that this guy in this video does not spend all day every day nailing roofing tile sheets like this -- this looks pretty performative, and performED. As in: "let's make a video, guys". Yeah, he's good - 'spect! - but I highly doubt anyone can crank that out for an 8-hour -- or even a 1-hour -- shift. Look: for one thing, those tiles have to be stacked and ready in a pretty convenient location, for him to be able to just swipe them into place Just So -- so either he's got an invisible off-screen helper who's missing screen-credits OR this is a short-term-only trick. For another: nail magazines run out. For another: roof layouts aren't some infinite uniform plane -- I assume as with any job like this it's a combination of some big swathes of uniform areas, as well as a lot of custom-fit bits, around edges, things-that-stick-up/holes, etc.

So his ability to just go "(swipe/position)...pop-pop-pop-pop-pop...(swipe/position)...pop-pop-pop-pop-pop" about 7-8 times in a row, that fast, as here, is probably something that's going to be maybe...30-40% of a job, max? A lot of the rest will be getting more tile packs and cutting them open, then stacking them in place; also trimming them to length or to fit around things; changing out knife blades in the thing to do said trimming; reloading the nail magazines; making sure the extension cord is still plugged in/long enough as he's moving around (or dealing with the compressor hose or reloading the power loads in the nailing gun) -- etc etc etc.

Basically: yep, really cool he can whack out those tiles that fast, and I respect that! But still, pretty sure this is a video, for video's sake...

[hemmjo]

Roofing guys get really good with those guns. They get paid buy the square, not buy the hour. GOOD crews have developed a system. Two guys start laying out a row. One guy feeding shingles to the other. The nailer starts down that row behind the layers, as the nailer moves down the row, two more guys start laying the next row. The gun guy does not even reload his own gun. When the nailer sees the tail end of the coil come out of the magazine, he has enough nails for one more shingle. He tosses the gun to another guy who already loaded another gun.

Of course not every crew is that good, but some are.

[nova_robotics]

They get paid buy the square, not buy the hour.

Really? That's kinda interesting, I've never heard that before. Around here it's all by the hour.

[hemmjo]

Really? That's kinda interesting, I've never heard that before. Around here it's all by the hour.

Perhaps I should quality my statement. Around here, most work is done by subcontractors. A roofing job is bid by the square. (100 square feet for those unfamiliar). The sub contractor is paid for getting the roof on at that bid price. The sub contractor's laborers are probably paid by the hour.

Successful bottom line depends on getting the shingles on as quickly as possible, less hours pay for laborers, more profit for the contractor. There are a lot of "one truck" roofing companies around here. Often a crew cab, everyone shows up and goes home at the same time.

[clavius]

Good roofing crews are impressive to watch. A neighbor had his house done a few years back. Not a huge house, but not tiny either. Roof is very steep (too steep to walk) with couple of dormers and more than one roof line due to successive additions through the years.

The crew arrived in the morning, and it was clear everyone had a particular role and knew how to do it. They had the roof stripped and any soft spots in the sheathing fixed in just the first half of the morning. Cleanup was continuous, stuff had barely hit the ground before it was picked up and in the dumpster trailer they brought.

When they started laying shingles they went along in a way that suggested that they had been working together for a long time. Two guys rough laid out the shingles ahead of the two guys nailing them down, one guy two tiers above he other, who was doing the next two rows down. Another couple of guys kept a flow of bundles moving up to the roof. The level of choreography was quite a thing. Another crew was doing the same on the other side of the roof. These guys were good and worked like a team of ants.

Most impressive to me was that this was all done without anyone taking unreasonable risks, the guys working on the roof were in fall protection harnesses and tethered off. They were wearing safety glasses, gloves where appropriate, and hard hats. They wrapped up by about 5PM and when they left, you would be hard pressed to know any work had been done there. Roof looked great and every scrap was gone and the entire lawn was gone over with a magnet to get any stray nails.