Problems with stapled shingles

While it used to be common practice to use staples to attach asphalt shingles to a roof, this has been a prohibited method of attachment in Minnesota since 2003.  Today, staples are considered an inferior method of attaching shingles to a roof, but it’s easy to understand why roofers like staples.

• Staple guns are smaller and better balanced.  Coil nail guns are literally fed with a coil of nails, and the holder for the nails makes the gun much bulkier.
• Staples are far less prone to jamming up in a gun than nails.
• Staples cost less money.
• Staples are much more compact; a roofer can hold a bunch of sticks of staples in their pocket and reload their gun very quickly.  Nail coils take up a lot more space, they take more time to reload, and they need to be treated carefully; if a coil of nails gets dropped or stepped on, it deforms the coil and makes it much more prone to jamming in the gun.

Staples are used because they make the roofer’s job easier; they don’t equate to a better installation.

The problem with stapled shingles is that they have a much greater chance of coming loose or blowing off the roof because staples are so easy to install improperly.  When a roofer holds a staple gun and fastens a shingle, the staples will have a tendency to be driven at an improper angle.

Staples are often improperly installed because it’s somewhat awkward to hold a staple gun completely perpendicular to the shingle.  For someone who is right handed, it’s much easier to shoot the staples on the left side of their body at an angle similar to a forward slash, and the staples on the right side at an angle similar to a backward slash.  The two super-crude diagrams below should help to illustrate what I’m talking about.

When staples are installed properly, they work fine, but they’re just too easy to install wrong.  This issue doesn’t happen with nails, because they have a round head; as long as a nail is driven in to a shingle straight, it doesn’t matter which way the nail gun is turned.  To know if a roof has been installed with staples, you can sometimes see the outline of the staples pushing through the shingle above.

   

Also notice, these staples aren’t perpendicular to the shingle.  This is the installation problem that typically happens with staples.

If you have a roof that’s been installed with staples, is it a defective installation?  If it was installed after 2003, technically yes, because staples aren’t allowed any more.  If every staple was perfectly installed, the installation would work just as well as perfectly installed nails, but I’ve found improperly installed staples at every stapled roof I’ve inspected.   If you have a roof with stapled shingles, you don’t need to replace the shingles as a rule of thumb, but you’re taking on some risk.  If shingles start blowing off on a regular basis, you’ll probably want to have the roof covering replaced.  This will be less costly and less of a hassle in the long run than having to deal with constant roof repairs.

When I inspect a house with shingles that have been improperly installed, I tell the same thing to my buyers; the shingles don’t need to be replaced, but they might cause some headaches.  If shingles have already started coming loose and obvious repairs have been made, I typically recommend replacement of the roof covering.

P.S. – Special thanks to roof guru and fellow home inspector Mike Moser for always knowing the answer to any technical roofing question right off the top of his head.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- Minnesota Home Inspections

        

This year, I'm thankful for closed-cell foam insulation. Yeah, that's right.

Yes, you read that right.  I’m thankful for closed cell foam insulation.  Of course, I’m thankful for my family, health, and all that other jazz, but this is a blog about home inspections and home related topics, so I’m going to stay focused on that.  To fully explain why I’m so thankful for closed cell foam insulation, I first need to complain about my house a little bit.

My thirteen-year-old house in Maple Grove has an unfinished basement with a walkout; this means about half of the basement walls have a poured concrete foundation, and the other half, the part that’s above grade, has conventional 2×6 wood framing.  The foundation walls are insulated at the exterior with rigid foam; this is a great way to insulate a foundation, because it means that the concrete walls will be relatively warm, and the potential for condensation problems will be minimized.  If you want to read more about foundation insulation methods, click this link –foundation insulation.

The stud walls, on the other hand, were insulated the same way as 99.9% of the houses in Minnesota – with fiberglass batts.  Yuck.  While this is the standard way to insulate a wall, it’s also probably the worst acceptable way to insulate a wall.  The photo at right gives a great example of how fiberglass batts are installed incorrectly all the time; just look at those gaps around the junction box.  I’ve already dedicated a blog to complaining about fiberglass batts, so enough on that topic.

In addition to having fiberglass batts for insulation, the vapor barrier in my basement was basically useless.  Here’s how a vapor barrier is supposed to work: to prevent air from passing through the fiberglass insulation and creating moisture problems in the wall, a vapor barrier gets installed.  This consists of 6 mil polyethylene sheeting (aka ‘poly’, aka ‘Visqueen’) that has been made airtight; that means caulked, overlapped, sealed, taped, etc.  On a home built today, this will be done quite well.  On a house that’s thirteen years old… no way.  The vapor barrier will probably be just about useless.

Unsealed vapor barriers create heat loss.  Just thirteen years ago, vapor barrier were never sealed. It was standard practice to just use a stapler to throw the poly on the walls and leave everything completely unsealed.  This practice allows for air to constantly circulate within the fiberglass insulation, creating a convective loop, which means a lot of heat gets lost through the walls.

I have my ‘office’ set up in my unfinished basement, so I spend a lot of time in the basement.  During the winter it gets very cold in my basement, despite the fact that I have 2×6 walls filled with fiberglass insulation.  Last winter I kept an electric space heater under my desk to keep my toes from turning in to icicles.

Fiberglass should never be used at rim spaces.  The rim space is the area between the floors of a house; this is an area where it’s nearly impossible to install a proper vapor barrier.  Without a vapor barrier, condensation can occur at the rim space, creating mold growth or eventually rotting out the rim space.  This is why fiberglass insulation should never be used here.  On new homes, it never is.  The only type of insulation that gets used on new construction homes in Minnesota is closed cell spray foam insulation; we’ll come back to that in a minute.

Unsealed vapor barriers can lead to mold growth.  When a vapor barrier isn’t sealed and air is allowed to freely pass through the wall, what happens when warm, moist air hits a cold surface?  It condenses.  My basement stays relatively cool and dry throughout the year, so the vapor drive is really happening from the exterior during the summer.  The walkout part of my basement faces south, so this part of the house is where I have the greatest temperature differential between the exterior and interior of the walls.

During the summer, as humid outdoor air passes through my walls and hits the relatively cool vapor barrier, the moisture condenses.  This summer there was never enough moisture to actually drip down to the floor, but it was enough to leave drip marks in the insulation and allow mold to start growing between the insulation and the vapor barrier.  This wasn’t major and I don’t have mold allergies, so I wasn’t too whipped up about this… but I couldn’t allow this to continue.

 

Enter closed-cell spray foam insulation.  To address all of the insulation, mold, and vapor barrier issues at the same time, I had the wood framed walls in my basement completely re-insulated about three weeks ago.  I had the vapor barriers removed, all of the fiberglass insulation removed, and closed cell foam sprayed in to the walls and rim spaces.

I love it.  Closed cell foam acts as a perfect vapor barrier after 2″, it doesn’t allow for convection, and it has a much higher insulating value than fiberglass.  Now when I walk down to my basement, I don’t feel a drastic change in temperature; my basement is only about two degrees cooler than the rest of my house.  I can sit here at the computer without a space heater, and I no longer freeze my toes off.  Life is good.

Having foam insulation sprayed in to the walls was expensive, but it was worth every penny.  Will I ever get a payback in energy savings?  I’m not sure.  I didn’t even bother to check the numbers, because my main motivation for this project was comfort.  Saving energy and not having mold growing inside the wall cavities is just a bonus.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- Maple Grove Home Inspections

        

"You're wasting your money on a home inspection, and we're not going to fix anything."

That’s what a local builder told one of my customers.  The home buyer hired me to inspect her new single family home before she finalized the purchase, and the builder apparently didn’t want to end up dealing with any hassles.  The builder’s rep told the buyer that having a new construction home inspection was a waste of money, and that even if I came up with any issues, it wouldn’t matter; the house had already been inspected by city, so they wouldn’t fix anything.

The home buyer said she felt like cancelling the entire purchase after hearing that, and I can’t say I blame her.  Who would want to buy a home from someone with an attitude like that?

Maybe the rep felt like he was being personally insulted when the buyer mentioned a home inspection, so he was getting defensive.  If that was the case, I say grow up.  This is just business.  Having an attitude like that will only turn buyers off, and make the builder look silly when the home inspector comes up with a list of installation defects.

It’s not supposed to be the home inspector against the builder; we’re both working for the home buyer, trying to make sure that any construction defects are addressed right away, before they turn in to a expensive problem.

My advice to builders

When builders use the old excuse of “the city already approved it” they end up looking like weasels.  Everyone knows that municipal building inspectors can’t possibly catch every little defect; no one can.   When a municipal inspector approves a permit, it means they didn’t find any defects; it doesn’t mean they’re putting their blessing on something that was done wrong.  When a builder tries to talk a home buyer out of having a home inspection done, it’s a huge red flag for the home buyer and the home inspector.

Builders should welcome a home inspection.  If the home buyer is nervous about the quality of construction, this is a perfect opportunity for the buyer’s fears to be assuaged.  If the home is truly well built, a good home inspector will say so.  While there may be a handful of overly zealous, hyper-critical home inspectors, most of us aren’t.  Most home inspectors appreciate neat work and best practices, and we love pointing this stuff out to clients.

When I inspect particularly neat wiring, I make a point of telling the buyer that the electrician probably took a lot of pride in their work.  

When I inspect a new home with insulation applied to the exterior of the foundation, I explain how this is a more expensive way of insulating the basement, but it’s also a superior way of doing it.

When I see a drain pan installed below a washing machine on the second floor, I tell my clients about how this isn’t required, but it’s a nice safety measure that the builder added.

A home inspection is a PR opportunity for the builder.  If the home inspector comes up with a list of construction defects, the builder has a golden opportunity to fix the issues with a smile.  This creates trust and goodwill with the buyer, which can lead to referrals.

When a builder welcomes a home inspection, they’re telling the home buyer that they’re confident in their work.    This concept seems obvious to me, but only the best builders seem to understand this.

Back to my original story.  I didn’t find a ton of defects at the new construction house I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.  It was all stuff that could probably be corrected in one day – a kitchen cabinet drawer that wouldn’t open because it was in a terrible location, a back-pitched plumbing vent, improper flashing above windows… stuff like that.  The buyer asked to builder to repair everything on my report, and wouldn’t you know it?  The builder was happy to fix everything.  I’m sure everyone will live happily ever after.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- Minnesota Home Inspections

        

How to Remove Black Roof Stains

If you have nasty black stains on your asphalt shingle roof, don’t worry.  The black staining won’t damage the shingles, and it won’t make your roof leak.  This black staining is typically caused by an algae, and usually shows up on areas of the roof that don’t get much sunlight, such as the north side.

If you don’t like the look of these stains, you can clean your roof with some basic supplies that you probably already have at home.  Simply mix up a solution of two parts water to one part bleach in a garden sprayer.  Spray down the affected areas of your roof with this solution, let the solution soak for about ten minutes, and then  spray the cleaning solution off your roof with a garden hose.

For this blog, I started by cleaning a small section of the roof and letting the shingles dry, just to get a good photo showing how effective this is.

A few precautions:

• Protect your lungs.  Bleach is nasty stuff, and you’ll get it in the air when you spray it with the garden sprayer.  Wear a respirator.
• Watch where you spray the cleaning solution.  The solution won’t harm your shingles, but you could certainly do damage to other surfaces or people if you’re not careful.
• Wear grubby clothes.  If you get this solution on your clothes, you’ll ruin ‘em.
• Protect your vegetation.  If the cleaning solution will run off the roof on to your plants, you should cover them up with tarps or something similar.
• Be careful on a ladder, and don’t walk on the roof.  This is ‘no-duh’ advice, but I’m saying it anyways.  Even if you’re used to walking on your roof, it will get very slippery once the bleach interacts with the algae, and you could easily slide off the roof.

Some people get whipped up over the topic of bleach.  If you don’t like the idea of using bleach, you could buy a product made for cleaning roofs, such as RoofOX 3000.  I’ve heard good reviews, but never tried this stuff personally.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email- Minnesota Home Inspections