Worker nailing shingles quickly - GIF

[clavius]

Very interesting video, but several years ago after a couple major hurricanes came to North Carolina, heard a radio story about how well houses were built, or not. One of the sub parts was roofing. Turns out lots of roofs that get done with air nailers, fully 1/3 of the nails don't go into rafters, just thru the roof decking. So a good blow comes along, those roofs tended to lose shingles, and then even get torn off. This, combined with all the other corner cutting by many contractors, means there are lots of systems in a house that are substandard against storms.

Also, back when Hurricane Andrew rolled across South Florida in 1992, the houses that stood up to the storm were often built by Habitat For Humanity volunteers, and houses that died sudden catastrophic deaths were the high-end houses. The difference? Volunteers were committed to doing a good job, because they believe in the program. The high end houses were built by contractors, who were pinching every penny. Habitat house, put the hurricane clips in, standard calls for what, 4 nails per ciip? Vollies might put in 5, or 6. Commercially built homes? Hurricane clips might get 2 nails, or even 1/2 the spec'd number of clips. Follow that math thru a 2 million dollar home, and a contractor can save a large amount of money.

I don't think the fact that those roofs were nailed with air nailers has much to do with the nails not being in rafters. The proper spacing of the nails is set by the design of the shingle and nothing dictates that the spacing bears any relation to the rafter spacing. That sounds like one of those things that news reporters say without really knowing what they are talking about.

As for the large fancy homes collapsing, that is simply shoddy construction and crooked or incompetent inspectors. Sad, really.