Lifting Bundles of Asphalt Shingles

Greetings - "23 feet - attached to a ladder"

is there a way you could sketch this idea?

Is the whole roof at that elevation-to-ground? if not & you have the guys over - you could always take shifts & heave the bundles up the ladder on the low-side, and then someone spread them out to the high-side (we did this once, it doesn't take long when you have help)

Just guessing here - more details would help & yes, I'll refrain from suggesting a pumpkin-chucker

1) When you buy shingles have them delivered to your roof! The supplier should be able to do this for you. If you still have that option, ALWAYS start with the first bundle received from the conveyor and place it at the furthest point on the roof. Then work your way toward the delivery spot as the process goes on. Why? Because you will be too tired by the time the last shingles reach the end of the conveyor to run to the end of the roof.

However, it sounds like you missed that opportunity. Sorry about your luck. Get your buds together the day before you do the job and haul them up one at a time on your shoulder. Watch the weight limits of the ladder. Lay and nail them down the next day after everyone has recovered.

The other options are to rent a conveyor or hire college students looking for summer work.

2) Never supply the beer until the job is done.

I should add, that even though it is an interesting engineering problem, the time and effort applied to creating a solution will far outweigh the time and effort to simply haul up the shingles.

If you were going to do this job on a regular basis I might change my tune,but after you finish this job I could reasonably be sure that you won't.

Yes, they supplier will deliver them with a truck equipped with a conveyor. All you have to do is take them from the conveyor and stack them somewhere.

Also, 40 bundles isn't that many for a few guys. You can carry them up the ladder on your shoulders like professional roofers do all the time.

Have the supplier put them on the roof with a SkyJack forklift?

I was going to recommend decreasingly inexpensive things, like shingle conveyors (rent them), but ran into this Shingle Elevator. Should be enough detail in the photos...

Model: Gigi

Shingle conveyors are commonly used around here, and one company makes a model that attaches to a regular extension ladder. I'll see if I can find a site for you.

If push comes to shove, however, I would go ahead and count on getting a few cases of beer. If you're drunk enough, falling off the roof doesn't hurt quite as bad.

I couldn't justify buying one of these to do a single roof. But maybe the tool rental has something simular to rent.

You're best off to just throw them over your shoulder and carry one or two at a time. That way you can distribute the weight evenly. Putting all that weight in one spot will end in disaster.

Or even better, go with a metal roof. They go on quick and easy, weigh a lot less and you don't even have to strip off the old shingles, just nail down a layer of tar paper then screw down the metal.

You should not attach metal roofing directly over an asphalt roof. Always reframe the roof so it's perfectly flat and the gap underneath also acts as a cooling channel.

try the lever and fulcrum method. Like a giant teeter totter.

Buld a pivot point that is about 8 feet high. Mount a 16 foot 2x4 at the top of it. Attach a three sided box to one end and a rope to the other. something like this?

Just a thought easy to build and quick too.

Oh wait, wait! :

Situate the teeter-totter with the end holding the shingle bundle away from the roof, and the other end a few feet out from the roof edge. Then jump off the roof onto the "up" end of the teeter-totter, thereby catapulting the bundle onto the roof. You could use different weights of your friends for how high up on the roof the bundles should go, and more beer to talk them into it!

Mike

double_j_b,

I doubt strongly that a 16 foot long 2x4 stud used as you depict would be able to "teeter" a 70 pound bundle of shingles.

Actually, I am pretty sure it would snap like a toothpick...

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Just my $0.02...

it flexes alot but doesn't break unless you really try to fling it.

I have done it with shingles before. Also bags of cement up to a second story. I had to turn the 2x on edge though.

double_j_b

If that's the case, then you must have higher grade lumber available to you in OK than I can get here in NY...

Personally, when I last had to deal with a similar circumstance (about 25 years ago), I went for the bundle on each shoulder and up the ladder routine, followed by a liberal application of fermented grain product.

You know, in retrospect, I believe that there may have been an application of distilled grain product subsequent to the application of fermented liquid...

(And this all followed a long day of ripping off of the old slate roof shingles)

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Just my $0.02...

Ah i remember those days, distilled grain hot roofs, and looking down at the hot women that were traveling by in their skimpy shorts and halter tops. mmmmmmm

Sorry drifted off for a bit there.

Just so you know I am about 180 to 190 lbs and I have stood at the center of a 12 foot 2x supported on the ends only without it breaking. Now whether that can be attributed to buying good lumber or not I don't know but I am sure that the stress placed on the lumber itself on a 16 foot piece couldn't be much worse than that with just a pack of shingles.

At any rate for safety purposes use 2 stacked if your worried. But the process does work.

I do agree that if its a one time deal then toting the bundles is not that bad. but I think that he is trying to make the job interesting and doesn't seem to be too worried about doing something a bit unique.

having put on about 20 roofs in my lifetime thus far, I always try to do something to make it interesting. beats the heck out of just working at it.

and thats my $0.02

I already tried that! However the guy across the street showed me how easy it was to throw a pack on your shoulder and climb up the ladder with it! NO PROBLEM. Sounds hard but it really is not. You will be needing beer later, but I suggest that it is later and not before.

Beer and Ben Gay.

Beer and Gay Ben? Maybe not the best combination. LOL

Seriously hand bombing them on your shoulder is the way to go. By the time you figure out / rent / design and build something, you could have all the shingles up on the roof, half on and half the beer drank!

Good luck, and remember the sun screen! Oh yes, limit the beers until the end otherwise the roof may not get done on schedule.

Josh

I used to install and repair garage doors. During that time I made a lot of neat stuff using good used parts, one of them was a shingle lift for a roofer friend.

The things I made weren't "engineered" in any traditional sense. I would just gather up motors with gearboxes, pullies and rollers, various kinds of track, etc, and start building.

Check with your local garage door company. We used to give away a lot of good used stuff just to get rid of it.

Sometimes even the springs can be used to provide a boost for your motor. Keep in mind that stored energy can be lethal. I met an installer that had only about 2/3 of his face left due to a moments inattention while winding a torsion spring. You can make neat catapults using those.

An 18 year old hard up for some cash and a 23 foot ladder.

I seem to remember something about a guy, a rope and pulley, and a barrel full of bricks... I'll go ask him.

If you knew someone who had a old corn elevator that use to fill the old corncribs with ear corn and a tractor that is a way we used to get them on the barn.

Just Hire a Bunch of MEXICANS

Here we use Hatians!

Make a small cart with wheels that will run on the edges of the ladder. with a rope to pull them up.

Thank you great guys, I loved some of the ideas.... edignan's Gigi (add some beer !) could really work. Actually the elevator shown is more like what i really have in mind, I could replace aluminium by 2x4's and use some gears, pulleys. Bill I look forward to link. double_j_b thanks for your unique out of the box idea, i am going to explore it, might end up saving lots of effort and money vermin - I am eager to hear more about rope,pulley and bricks...!

I've always just put one bundle on each shoulder and carried them up!

Most tools rental places will rent you a lift. And many supply houses will lift them up on your roof useing a forklift.

Here's one outfit in Canada that makes ladder hoists that fit standard extension ladders: SPAR-Marathon, but they aren't the one I was thinking about (it's only been 35 years since I bought one).

I'll keep looking.

By the way, there are a few tool rental companies around here which rent shingle lifts.

Around here we use a gadget called a Mexican for such jobs... They are readily available outside the local Walmart.

Quick solution: rope or canvas sling to hold shingle bundle, pulley on sling.

Run rope from anchor on ground over peak of roof, down to pulley, and back across roof.

Now, a person on the ground can use 35 pounds of force (plus losses, less the 4:1 slope of the ladder) to drag that 70 pound bundle of shingles up the face of the ladder.

A definite risk to the "shoulder carry" method is if the power unit (human) and the bundle of shingles together weigh more than the capacity of the ladder!

I'm a big guy, and my Type IA fiberglass ladder (300 lb duty rating, user AND materials) would be over 120% of rated capacity if I had a bundle of shingles on my shoulder- and my work boots, and my tool belt, and my 20 oz Estwing roofer's hammer, etc. etc.

Standard ladder ratings below:

Type III is the most common type to be found lying around. FYI old, cheap Aluminum ladders don't give you any warning before they suffer a fatigue failure and land you on the ground. Wooden ladders at least creak, groan and crack first- usually. Never seen a fiberglass ladder fail, so I can't comment on that.

Most common failure mode is when the ladder is at a shallower angle than 4:1, creating bending stress where the two ladder sections meet instead of linear stress.

Used to do a lot of painting when I was younger. Sheds and such. Instead of carying the tins of paint and my own weight up and down the ladder multiple times, I made tied the cans onto a rope at intervals that equalled the shed height and pulled them up one at a time as needed.

Maybe just make a small cradle and with person 1 on the ground and person 2 on the roof, haul them up one bundle at a time.

If you weigh 200 pounds and if shingle packs weigh 40 pounds, then each lifted load is 240x23 foot pound of effort, whereas the rope and sling method (even if the sling weighs 10 pounds) means only 50x23 foot pounds per pack.

I know which way I'd rather do it.

Roof jacks and strong backs! (and lottsa beers)