Cracked, curled, or damaged shingles allow moisture to damage your roof decking. As long as your roof is in overall good condition, you may be able to fix small issues yourself although we do recommend getting help from a professional roofer. Directions on how to repair roof shingles vary a bit depending on the extent of the damage. When you need to replace one or more shingles, use the shingles leftover from your last roofing job. Otherwise, buy a bundle of shingles that match your roof color as closely as possible.
How to Repair Roof Shingles Directions
To fix curled or cracked shingles:
- Collect your tools and materials and mount an extension ladder securely at the base of the roof.
- For a curled shingle, load tube of roofing sealant into caulking gun.
- Squeeze sealant beneath the curled shingle and press it down flat.
- Weigh the glued shingle down with a brick for 24 hours.
- For a cracked shingle, apply sealant beneath the crack.
- Press the shingle down and apply more sealant over the crack.
- Spread sealant smooth with a putty knife.
- Collect some shingle granules from the rain gutter and sprinkle over wet sealant to camouflage crack repair.
To fix broken shingles:
- Gather up your pry bar, hammer, utility knife, replacement shingles, and some 1-1/4-inch roofing nails.
- Climb on to the roof.
- Slide pry bar beneath the row of shingles directly above damaged section.
- Lift slowly to break sealer strip connection and expose first row of nails.
- Move pry bar under damaged shingle and lift until the nails pop.
- Release shingle and pull out lifted nails with hammer claw.
- Now use the pry bar to lift the shingle above the damaged shingle and expose second row of nails.
- Remove second row of nails in the same manner as the first row.
- As an alternative, use the utility knife to cut damaged shingle away from second row of nails.
- Cut Vs around nails and pull off damaged shingle.
- Slide the replacement 3-tab shingle into place.
- Nail down the new shingle with 4 roofing nails.
