A little help needed with wood shingles

[Erby]

I see very few wood shingle roofs but had one today.  Some thought from the brain trust please.  

I see a couple of missing shingles and obviously the ridge sucks with all those loose shingles.

The fungal growth on them doesn't bother me much.  Should it?

No leaks.  Installed over dimensional rafters and plywood sheathing.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Erby

[mjr6550]

I would say it is shot. It would be helpful to know the age. 

I assume the photos are from a drone. They look good, but a few closeups, even from a good telephoto lens, may be more helpful. The second photo from the last probably shows the shingles best at the left side of the photo. 

One more thing, if the shingles were installed directly on plywood sheathing it is a bad installation. 

[Marc]

Looks like they've started a roof covering replacement.  Tell them they should finish it.

MJR....Erby's the sort that can fly like that.  I seen him before, perched atop a tall chimney, about to disappear in the clouds.  Got some pretty amazing fellas here.  Had one that could jump over tall buildings.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Marc

[Bill Kibbel]

It's about done.  Yes, moss & lichen are detrimental.

Today's wood shingles don't last more than 15 years here unless installed on spaced wood battens, without felt.  Only shakes are required to be installed with felt.

I once removed a 60 year old (documented) wood shingle roof off an historic building.  Trimmed 1/2" off the butts and reinstalled them over an accessory building.  That was about 28 years ago.

[Erby]

Added close up pictures.

 

[Jim Katen]

Those are shakes, not shingles. 

They're a mess. It's time to replace them. 

In general, when evaluating a shake roof, focus on the condition of the keyways - the spaces between the shakes. The shake below is thinnest there and will wear away completely, leaving holes. Once this starts, the end is near. 

[Rob Amaral]

G-O-N-E            

[Tom Raymond]

[Jerry Simon]

10 hours ago, Jim Katen said:

In general, when evaluating a shake roof, focus on the condition of the keyways - the spaces between the shakes. The shake below is thinnest there and will wear away completely, leaving holes. Once this starts, the end is near. 

The thin keyway areas (or "slots" as I call them) are also very susceptible to hail-impact damage.  A hailstorm can destroy a wood shake roof overnight due to such slot damage.  It's probably the biggest problem I find with wood shakes in this neck of the woods.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Jerry Simon

[mjr6550]

The close up photos are much better, and they make it clear that the roofing is shot.

[John Kogel]

There are 2 reasons why there are no leaks, steep pitch and felt underlay. Another reason is they have had some patching done, looks like some newer shingles in one closeup and some plastic under that moss?

Thick moss keeps the shakes or shingles wet, and that allows organisms to destroy wood faster.

That roof here would be about 35+ years old, maybe as old as 45..

The dormer addition looks to be recent.

Nice toy, the skybot.

 

[Chad Fabry]

I suspect Erby's opening statement was tongue-in-cheek. The roof should have been replaced ten years ago.

[Jim Baird]

Compliments on the skybot pics.  I would never attempt to scale such a roof.

I've gone to neighborhoods in VA where wood roofs were an HOA minimum, and don't know if they allowed those mutt and jeff rear vs front hybrids.  This is such a great example of looks trumping practicality in the name of what realtors would call "value" or what homeowners would define as status.

[John Kogel]

Hand-split Cedar shakes made the best roof here back in the 70's. That was then and this is now.

There is still some logging of old-growth Cedar going on up the coast here, but it is mostly by heli-logging of the last steepest slopes that were inaccessible by road or rail. Cedar is now mostly sawn into shingles for decorating the gable ends.

People that buy in to those exclusive burbs sometimes choose a patch-up and paint treatment of their tired old cedar roofs, but it is mostly a waste of money.

Some guys that paint and patch wear golf spikes. I have some great pics of cedar shingles that look like they've been blasted with bird shot.

 

[hausdok]

We have 'em both here, John, split and rift-sawn. Still lots of folks here with shake roofs.

[John Kogel]

Hello, Mike. Yes, I remember the shake geodesic dome that Robert got to inspect.

FYI, not that it makes any diff, US-based logging outfits operating on Vancouver Island and the North Coast fly the logs out, often cants quarter-sawn with chainsaws, and then most of the end product ends up in the US. Some of the shingles and shakes get fire retardant added for California specs.

I'm afraid raw logs go from here to the US for milling. But since we allowed Canadians to sell the timber rights to US companies, hey, nobody to blame but us.

Moderators may do what they will with this. It is a test of sorts.

[John Kogel]

Big Cedar logs too heavy are quartered and gently lifted off the hill with the Air Crane, impressive to watch. There is a second pilot facing backwards, who drops a grapple on the log or cant.

Sometimes fir trees are topped and cut with just a few wood wedges and a strip of holding wood keeping them standing. Then the heli-loggers grab the tree with the grapple and snap it off the stump. They are able to log along rivers and creeks that way, not clear cutting.

We have large tracts of woodlands that are public land, federally owned. So to sell the cutting permits to a private corp should be an issue for the public to discuss and approve, but deals were hustled thru behind closed doors in about 1999. FYI.

Edited June 26, 2017 by John Kogel
Hot topic, but just to me. [;)]

[hausdok]

I was still in the Army when they retired those and sent them to the National Guard. We were sad to see them go. For a while they could be seen here and there when the NG outfits that had them were drilling  but after a while we didn't see them anymore.

[Jim Katen]

18 hours ago, hausdok said:

I was still in the Army when they retired those and sent them to the National Guard. We were sad to see them go. For a while they could be seen here and there when the NG outfits that had them were drilling  but after a while we didn't see them anymore.

What are they called? 

Somehow, they remind me of those pictures of kids with anorexia. . . 

[Les]

12 hours ago, Jim Katen said:

What are they called? 

Somehow, they remind me of those pictures of kids with anorexia. . . 

we always call them sky cranes.  likely a better moniker out west!

 

[John Kogel]

It's a Fuel guzzling dragonfly.

Actually it is called the Aircrane.

I looked it up, Sikorsky design but now known as Erickson Aircrane.

Edited June 29, 2017 by John Kogel
Googled it

[hausdok]

Well,

When I was in everyone called it either a CH54 or a Sky Crane, but the military model name was Tarhe. At least that's what one of my NCO's called the one we were close to while sequestered on the green ramp at Pope AFB waiting to go do a pay jump. He pronounced it 'Tar-Hey', but he had a southern drawl as deep as the Atlantic trench  and he used to pronounce all sorts of things odd - like vehicle wasn't 'vee-ick-ul' as I was taught to say it. With him it was 'vee(slight pause) hick-ul' with an emphasis on the H sound.

As you may know, most US Army helicopters, for some reason, have been named after native American tribes or persons. Nobody I knew had ever heard of a Tarhe tribe, so it wasn't very memorable and just about everyone referred to them as a CH54.

[rjbrown2]

"It is named after Tarhe (whose nickname was "The Crane"), an 18th-century chief of the Wyandot Indian tribe." from Wikipedia. And "vee-(slight space) HICKLE" is a common Southern pronunciation of 'vehicle.' Don't need no 'Lantic Trench...<bb