There could be many reasons you are losing shingles left and right from your home, Below are the three most common reasons shingles blow off or grow legs and walk away!
What causes shingles to blow off?
Shoddy installation
How shingles are attached to your roof depends on the slope of the roof, the manufacturer of the shingle and the type of shingle installed. It could be that when your roof was installed, it was not installed, as it should have been.
If your home or roof is new (less than 10 years old), the later is the most likely cause.
What to do: If your roof is still under warranty, contact the builder, installer or roofing manufacturer. They should make it right.
If you are outside of the warranty period, contact a trusted roofer to fix the missing shingles and make sure there are not any other problems with your roof. (Most new homes come with a 2 year warranty).
Taking your afternoon stroll on your shingles
(I think we need more cowbell)
When you walk on a shingle roof, you can damage the shingles and/or cause them to work loose from the nails depending on how hot of a day and how steep of a roof.
If you have a clay tile roof, you should never walk on it! Clay is clay, it cracks easily.
What to do: Replace the missing shingles on your roof and avoid walking on the roof more in the future.
Extreme weather
Most asphalt shingle roofs are built to withstand extreme weather; and we tend to get a lot of it. But in some cases, the extreme wind can catch a shingle and blow it off the roof. Shingles on the ridge and eaves of the roof are especially susceptible to sprouting wings and taking flight.
What to do: First and foremost, contact your insurance company (unless you have catastrophic damage) they may be able to get you in touch with a preferred contractor, If there is catastrophic damage and it would cause more damage to wait for an adjuster then contact a professional roofing contractor to assess the damage and get you dried in.
Even though it might just look like a few missing shingles, there could be more damage than you can see.
It’s good to know that shingles are usually strong enough to withstand extreme weather, as you said. I think that if you are missing some shingles on your roof that you try to hire someone to get it repaired as soon as possible to prevent water damages from occurring. Your roof is one of your main lines of defense from the elements. It’s important that you keep it in good shape so that you can avoid further damages to your home.
I wasn’t aware that you should never walk on clay roofing! It makes sense because it cracks easily, just as you mentioned. I wonder if someone was walking on my roof because all of my shingles are cracked. This is a great thing to remember as I start looking for a roofer to re-roof my house.
You mentioned that extreme weather can make shingles fall off. It would be nice to get a roofer to look at my roof. Strong winds recently blew some shingles off of my roof.
It makes sense that shingles can be damaged whenever you stand on top of your roof and should be replaced. Last week, tried installing a swamp cooler for my home which required me to get on the roof, and I accidentally scraped a few of my shingles off while I was on top of my house. It may be a good idea to call some roofers who can help me replace the shingles that fell off.