What are roof shingles?
Most homeowners have roof shingles, but few spend enough time there. The purpose of roof shingles is to provide a single-layer solution to a leak-proof roof for a home or structure. The shingles are generally arranged from the lower edge of the roof, each upper row overlapping the lower row. Traditionally, the shingles were made of wood and were capped at the top of a row of copper or lead sheets. In modern shingle roofs, this has been replaced by a row of shingles covered with plastic.
Back to the composition of the shingles, the wood was considered good. But over time, modern materials such as asphalt and asbestos cement have replaced wood as common materials. Fiberglass asphalt shingles are now the most popular shingles used in the United States. The obvious problem with wood is fire, and fire is the reason why shingles covered with paper and paper are rarely used in modern constructions.
Most people have seen a type of wood shingle, but would not be able to identify it. This is called a shake, which is a wooden shingle made of split logs. Log cabins and many wood frame houses are widespread. They are still used today, most often by helicopter, but this has not always been the case. Before the invention of helicopters, shakes were tied in bags and transported by animals or even by human force. Often cut in mountainous areas, they were transported on the slope using a long line from bottom to top. This line was used as a hand to prevent people carrying shaking sacks from falling.
The main difference between a shingle and a slab is flexibility. The tiles are usually ceramic. They are fragile and poorly adapted to places where tree branches could fall on a roof. The shingles are flexible and therefore better able to withstand tree branches. Wood shingles rot, unlike ceramic tiles, but modern materials such as the asbestos base of most shingles do not rot. Another difference is the form. The shingles are flat, while the ceramic tiles usually have an S profile to allow them to fit together for extra strength.
