What are roofing nails?
What makes a nail a roofing nail
- Wide head. At least 3/8 inch across, so it clamps the shingle instead of punching through the soft asphalt.
- Heavy, short shank. Usually 11 or 12 gauge and 1 to 2 inches long. Most new shingle work uses 1-1/4 inch nails.
- Corrosion coating. Galvanized (zinc coated) steel is standard. Stainless, copper and aluminum are used where the nail must match a metal flashing.
- Grip. Many have a lightly ringed or barbed shank for extra holding power.
Hand nails vs coil nails
Roofers today almost always use coil nails: the same nail joined by thin wire into a coil that feeds a pneumatic nailer. Hand drive nails come loose in boxes for repairs. Either way, the nail must meet the same code minimums.
How many and what they cost
A standard shingle gets four nails, and six in high wind patterns or wherever the manufacturer calls for it, so one square (100 square feet of roof) takes a few hundred nails. Nails are one of the cheapest parts of a roof, a small fraction of the material cost, and contractors include them in the installation price rather than billing them separately. In an insurance estimate they are folded into the shingle line item.
Why placement matters more than price
Many shingle blow-offs after Georgia storms trace back to how the nails were set rather than the shingle itself: nails too high above the nailing strip, driven crooked, or overdriven through the mat. A manufacturer's wind warranty assumes correct placement. See wind damage to roofs in Georgia and the layer by layer view in roof anatomy explained.