Copper Roof Strips

Hi, I'm Tim Carter. I'm the author of RoofingRipoff.com and the founder of AskTheBuilder.com

And I just finished putting some copper up on this asphalt shingle roof

And the reason why is the copper actually helps extend the life of the asphalt shingles

You can read all about that at RoofingRipoff.com. Let me show you how simple it is to put this copper on

You'll need just a hammer, measuring tape, and a tin snips for this job

Be sure you have the proper ring shank solid copper nails for the job

They need to be long enough to penetrate completely through the copper, all roofing materials, and through the roof deck

The 12-inch wide copper sheet is designed to completely cover most common asphalt shingle roof caps, as well as ridge vent material

All you have to do is to attach the copper strip to one side of the roof first

and after that's complete, the nails are driven on the other roof slope. You start by just rolling out one foot of copper

aligning the edge of the copper with the bottom edge of the cap shingles or the roof ridge vent material

Drive your first nail about three inches in from the edge of the roof

Leave the head of the nail about one half inch above the copper for now

Do not hammer it tight. This allows you to adjust the copper so it aligns with the rest of the cap shingles or ridge vent material

Roll out another three feet or so of the copper and align the edge of the copper with the bottom edge of the cap shingles

Drive your next nail making sure it's about four feet from the first nail

Continue to unroll the copper and try to keep it aligned with the bottom of the cap shingles driving a nail every two feet on center Avoid wrinkles or kinks in the copper if possible You won see those from the ground so don worry about it Trim the copper roll at the end of the roof using

the tin snips. Once one side is fully attached, then fold the copper over and drive the nails at

two foot centers on the other side of the roof. Oh, it looks pretty good. Okay, it's all finished

and I just want to let you know, you know, it looks wrinkly up here on the roof. Don't worry

about that. When you get down and you stand back 30 or 40 feet or stand out at the street, you're

not going to really see any of that. And also, once it weathers, it's really going to disappear

Let's talk a little bit about face nailing the copper. A lot of people have questions about that

So if you notice, a lot of places on your roof, you actually have exposed nails sometimes. For

example, the last cap shingle on the average asphalt shingle roof is face nailed. You can put

sealant over it if you want to. It doesn't make any difference. The ring shank nails actually will

make sure that the roof won't leak. The other reason it's not so critical is there's not much

water at the top of the roof. You never want a face nail down at the bottom of a roof because

all of the water that flows down the roof would flow over that nail and you'd have a lot of water

coming in. But at the top you rarely have hardly any water at all. But if you want to go ahead and

put some sealant, some silicone caulk, some roofing cement, whatever, fine with me. So it's really that

simple. This copper is going to help extend the life of your asphalt shingles 20, 30, even up to

40 years. And all you care about is that the copper outlasts you and your roof. It's that simple. I'm

Thank you