Replacing Asphalt Shingles:
Part 1
Tearing Off The Old Roof

These first two pictures were taken on the south side of the roof, in the fall of 2007, a year before I replaced the roof on my garage.

The shingles in some areas were in fair condition, but a couple of sections were ridiculously worn out.

A closer view of the worst area. Frankly, I'm surprised the roof didn't have a worse leak. At this point the shingles were about 28 years old.

There was nothing left of the shingle tabs but little flaps of tar paper.

I took these pictures when I did a quick-and-dirty patch job with a couple gallons of tar. That patch worked very well... it stopped the leaks and lasted for almost a year.

The shingles on the north side were in much better condition, although they had started to curl.

Oddly, these shingles had no tar strip below the shingle tabs, which is meant to keep the tabs from lifting up and breaking in strong winds. Up to this point I didn't know they made shingles without tar strips.

This was the worst shingle on the north side of the garage.

I spread out some tarps and old sheets of plastic on the ground below the roof. Past experience has taught me that there will be lots of nails and small bits of shingles that will be very difficult to clean up without some tarps.

I parked my small utility trailer close to the garage, so I could throw shingles directly into the trailer.

My garage roof was so low that I could easily reach it from an 8-foot stepladder.

To make disposing of shingles easier, I lined my 4x8 trailer with a sheet of plastic. This should keep nails from falling through the gaps. I used spring clamps to hold the plastic in place.

This is a shingle scraper, which is just a special shovel with teeth and a heel for prying shingles up. I bought this tool at Home Depot several years ago for about $35.

In a pinch, a flat-blade shovel or a pitch-fork can also be used, but they aren't as fast as this tool.

I started the tear-off procedure in the upper corner of the roof. It seems to be faster to work from the top down, but it's harder work.

If I worked from the bottom up, it was easier to pull off the shingles, but it seemed that the nails usually stayed in the roof.

I made sure to get the scraper under the original tar paper, so the whole works would be pulled up.

Prying at this jagged angled edge of shingles was less effective than just working across the top, removing a strip of two or three shingles at a time.

After removing shingles, there were LOTS of nails sticking up.

I just used the shingle scraper to get under the nail heads and then pop them out. This worked fairly well, but a pry bar works just as good.

I used a hammer and this medium-size prybar to dig under the nail heads.

Then the roofing nails were easy to pry up.

To make this job go faster, I used a bench grinder to sharpen the beveled edge on this prybar. A sharp edge made it easier to get under the nail heads.

After prying up a bunch of nails, I used this rolling magnet to pick up the nails. I suppose I could've just swept the nails over the edge, but this way I avoided kneeling on any stray nails.

It's also good to do any clean-up chores that reduce the chance of tripping while working on the roof. Loosing your balance is one way of falling off the roof.

I didn't think the original nailing was adequate, so I used my nail gun to add some more nails. I drove 2-3/8" nails about 8 inches apart, closer when nailing the edges of the panels.

Using this Paslode cordless framing nail gun is kinda slow compared to a pneumatic nail gun, but it's much faster than hand-nailing. It took me about 30 minutes to nail off each side of the garage roof.

Instead of trying to juggle a heavy roll of felt while working on the roof, I cut the felt into shorter strips on the lawn.

I used a block of wood to weigh down the end, then I unrolled the tar paper alongside a tape measure.

Using a scrap of plywood for a cutting board and a level as a straight-edge, I cut the tar paper with a utility knife.

After ensuring 2 inches of overlap with the previous row, I stapled the lower corner of the felt to the roof and unrolled it.

When the felt was unrolled about 10 feet, I adjusted its position (to make it parallel with the previous row) and stapled it down with a hammer-tacker.

It only took about half an hour to apply felt to each side of the garage roof.

This is the goal of the roof tear-off procedure. Once the shingles are removed, the roof is covered with tar paper to protect the building from rain. While tar paper is certainly not a permanent solution, it can withstand a few months of sunlight before it seriously degrades. Withstanding the wind... now that's another story.

To hold down the sides better, I fastened the edges with roofing nails.

Then I started shingling the roof.

Read the next step... Working With 3-Tab Shingles: Installation Details For Professional Results.