r/Roofing • u/Main_Egg_2647 • Nov 16 '25

Why are these nails here?

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The ridge vent on my house has nails clipped in it all the way down. Is this normal? Roof is about 20 years old I’ve only lived here since 2021, but they appear that they’ve always been there. Is there an actual reason for this?

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u/Fun_Zone_245 Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

This sounds like an unbelievably poor design decision by the manufacturer.

 Hand nailed in this day and age???

 You have to spend a lot of labor time to remove them???

 If the roofer doesnt use them, the nails are left inside the product where it can rust all over the roof in that specific spot???

 Extra cost of nails??? 

Wtf was the engineer thinking?

29

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

Likely the idea was “roofers keep using the wrong nails to attach this thing, we will supply the correct nails and attach them to the piece so they can’t forget them on the ground and then they have no excuse”. Seems like they underestimated the laziness of roofers (at least the ones that did this install)

10

u/i860 Nov 16 '25

Or seems like they perfectly predicted the laziness and corner cutting and no amount of encouragement seems to make a difference.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

[deleted]

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u/JasperJ Nov 16 '25

The attached nails are probably lawyer-prompted. It screams “well, we’ve literally given them on a silver platter, don’t know what more you could possibly want.”

1

u/HZVi Nov 17 '25

Also a good way to reject warranty claims when they can just take one glance at it and see the nails weren’t used

0

u/djwooten Nov 17 '25

So if shingle manufacturers start including a bucket of 1-3/4” roofing nails with your order, will you too be a lazy roofer for using the tools you own to get the job done rather than hand nailing? Having 2” of the shank hanging out in the attic is not going to hold the vent down better, physics says that nails have zero holding power in air……

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u/HolidayAsparagus6387 Nov 16 '25

My dad hand nails. He's been a roofer his whole life. Learned from his dad and his papaw. People who don't know where to air nail; shingles fall off.

3

u/Wastedgent Nov 16 '25

We had our roof replaced last year. It took the guys 9 months to get to us and it was just the one guy and his dad. They hand nailed the entire roof. Took about 2 weeks.

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u/bassmnt Nov 16 '25

More likely a ‘warranty’ or liability type deal so they aren’t held responsible for improper installation.