How Long Are Roofing Nails

Fasteners should be long enough to penetrate at least 3 4 19mm into wood decks or just through the plywood decks.

How long are roofing nails.

When installing asphalt shingles on felt only to any grade decking you should use 1 inch long roofing nails. The shingle warranties are very specific about the nail length and you want the right nail so they have enough holding power to resist blowing off by strong winds. For reroofing shingle over shingle or hip and ridge application it is necessary to use minimum 35 mm long roofing nails. Standard lengths are between 1 and 2 inches 2 and 5 centimeters but they are also available at lengths of up to 6 inches 15 centimeters.

We have to use 30 mm long nails if we are installing thicker shingles like the laminated shingles cambridge xpress or cambridge xtreme 9 5. The thickness of the nail is directly proportional to its length thus the longer the nail the bigger its size. Nails of the proper length should penetrate three fourths of an inch into the roof deck. The more common roof thickness is 3 4 inch decking.

Use only zinc coated steel or aluminum 10 12 gauge barbed deformed or smooth shank roofing nails with heads 3 8 10mm to 7 16 12mm in diameter. The length of each nail must be a minimum of 1 inches long and for roof overs atlas recommends a nail length of at least 2 inches. If you re applying a thin shingle to a wood surface and no other shingles are present you might be able to get by with nails that are only one and one quarter inch long. Roofing nails range from one to six inches in length.

Continue reading below our video of the day nails that are longer than six inches are called pikes and they are seldom used on roofs. Another kind of classification for roofing nails is by size.