How To Dispose Of Old Roofing Shingles
As leaving old shingles on the roof deck and just going over them with the new shingles is a VERY BAD idea – it will shorten the lifespan of your new roofing plus you’ll just have to remove two layers of shingles later on – you can’t avoid the question of what to do with old shingles.
Initial Containment Of Tear-off Mess
The first thing to do with old shingles is to contain them during the tear off process to prevent a major mess. Strategic placement of roofing tarps, orderly tear off (one roof section at a time), and initial storage of torn off shingles in a dumpster, large tarp, or heavy duty garbage cans is key.
Once you have the roof deck fully cleared and ready for inspection and to receive the new roofing material, you can begin to deal with removing the tear-off from your property. Here are 3 options as to what to do with it:
1. Recycling Old Shingles
The fact is, there are many composites, resins, and other valuable substances in ordinary asphalt shingles that make them useful when recycled. Specifically, throw-away shingles are often melted down for use in road pavement and in cement as hot-mix asphalt. The more we recycle used shingles, the less new oil and other materials are needed for the products they become a part of.
Asphalt shingle recycling centers are now fairly widely available in most localities across the US. However, even if a center is near you, you have to consider their rules and policies. Sometimes, you have to pre-clean or pre-grind the shingles – other times not. You never have to remove the nails yourself, however, since that is done by powerful magnets.
Some centers require you to pay a fee to donate the shingles for recycling. Others let you do it for free, while still other centers actually pay you for the materials.
2. Donation For Reuse
Aside from recycling, old shingles can sometimes be reused. This may occur where the shingles being removed are still in pretty good condition, but you just wanted a change of color or style or early replacement to boost the value of a house you plan to list.
Some groups buy or take for free your old, good shingles and then use them in charitable causes to roof low-income homes.
3. Simple Throw-out
If your shingles are not in good enough shape to donate for reuse, and they don’t meet the standards set by local asphalt shingle recycling centers, then you have not choice but to simply throw them out. Your roofing contractor will use a dumpster to collect the waste from the tear off and the whole project, and at project’s end, it will all marvelously disappear.
Removal of old shingles will be included in the labor costs of the project, and the dumpster company will of course charge a fee as well. If your shingles are old enough to contain asbestos, then that requires special disposal.
For answers to all your roofing and shingle related questions, do not hesitate to contact Sheegog Contracting in Central Florida today!
