3 Shingles I Would Put On My Own House, And 3 Shingles I Would Not
If you're trying to decide what shingles to put on your house would you like to know what shingles are roofer would put on his own house?
I'm going to explain 3 different shingles that I would put on my own house, and three that i would not. But to find out which shingle I actually did put on my own house you will have to read to the end of the article.
WOULD: CertainTeed Landmark
This is kind of like CertainTeed's entry level shingle, although I want to make clear that it's not a typical builder grade shingle like you see on so many other houses.
It's really a step above what most manufacturers entry level shingle is.
The Landmark is a standard asphalt shingle, and when I say a standard shingle I mean that it's not an impact resistant shingle. But the Landmark is actually a fairly heavy shingle so that means it has more asphalt in it, and in my experience that means that it's going to hold up to hail damage better than some of its competitors that aren't as thick.
The other thing I like about the Landmark, and really all CertainTeed products, is how well the shingles seal. If you are doing research on YouTube about what the best shingle is, most likely you're going to see videos where they're doing what's called a pull test. That's where they nail a shingle to a board and then use a tool to test how much force it takes to pull the shingle off of the nails.
But in my opinion if the shingles seal together well then you don't have to worry about whether the shingles will come off. When the shingles have sealed the wind won't take them off.
WOULD NOT: Owens-Corning Oakridge
A shingle I would not put on my house is the Owens Corning Oakridge. In my opinion this really is a builder grade shingle. It's very popular with home builders, and hopefully you understand what I mean by the term builder grade. It's not the kind of quality that I would want in a product on my house.
In the 12 years I have in the roofing industry, I haven't seen that this product holds up very well to hail damage. And, in my experience, if I get called out to a house because shingles have blown off, most of the time it's this shingle. So this is not a product I would put on my house.
WOULD: Malarkey Legacy
I know Malarkey is kind of a funny name for a product but they are really a leader in innovating shingle technology. The Legacy is what's called an SBS modified asphalt shingle. What that means for you, basically, is that the shingle material is rubberized. It uses rubber to make up the shingle subsurface, and Malarkey was pretty much the pioneer when it comes to this technology. Over the decades they have really perfected this product. This makes this shingle a Class 4 Impact Resistant shingle.
Malarkey has a great reputation with roofing contractors and material suppliers, so if CertainTeed wasn't available to me the Malarkey is what I would put on my own house.
WOULD NOT: Owens-Corning Duration Storm
I don't want it to seem like I'm picking on Owens Corning but another product I would not use on my house is their Duration Storm product. Although it's not an SBS modified shingle like the Legacy, it is rated as a Class 4, impact resistant shingle.
Owens Corning gets this rating due to the mesh scrim that they put in the shingle. This prevents hail from cracking a matte of the shingle but it doesn't prevent damage to the shingle surface like an SBS shingle does.
After inspecting and replacing hundreds of roofs over the years I haven't seen that this product performs very well through a hailstorm. For that reason I would not put this on my own house.
WOULD: CertainTeed Northgate
Another CertainTeed product that I would use is the Northgate. Homestead Roofing has a lot of experience installing this product dating all the way back to 2015, right when it first came out.
Like the Malarkey Legacy, it's also an SBS modified asphalt shingle. So the fact that it is a rubberized product means that material helps to dissipate the impact of hail when it hits the roof. It actually causes the hail to bounce off of it without doing much damage to the shingle surface.
Since we've installed this on so many roofs, and since our city gets so much hail, we've had plenty of opportunity to inspect roofs that we've installed the Northgate shingle on, after hailstorms have hit the houses again. The reason I'm so excited about the Northgate shingle is because out of all the houses that we've installed this product on, and then inspected them again after hailstorms, only a small handful of them have needed to be replaced, and that was due to extremely large hail.
WOULD NOT: Tamko Heritage
Another product that I would not use is the Tamko Heritage. In my years in the roofing industry this is the shingle that we've seen the most
problems with. The primary problem we have seen with it has been delamination. What that means is the granules on top of the shingle, which are there to protect the asphalt from UV exposure and weather elements, come off of the shingle. When that happens the asphalt is no longer protected and can start to deteriorate, crack, curl, or break.
We have even had experiences where we've had to replace roofs on houses that are only two or three years old. A shingle should definitely last longer than two or three years. And in these experiences we've never had a positive working relationship with the companies warranty.
So this is absolutely not a product I would put on my house.
So have you guessed which shingle I actually did put on my house?
If you guessed the CertainTeed Northgate you would be correct!
