Wood for Roof Shingles (other than cedar)?

[MEMountainMan]

Hi everyone,
    I'm up here in Maine and I've run out of cedar. I need to cut roof shingles for some out buildings that would last about 20 years. Does anybody have any suggestions? I have white pine, spruce and fir availible. I know hemlock won't last nor will quaking aspen. I do not have access to a computer other than in town at the local libarary so I won't be able to respond for a week or so. Thank you for any help, I really need it. Mark

[Small Slick]

It wasn't on your list of available wood but I heard white oak works well.

John

[mrector]

I just used white pine to shingle a roof on a 12x8 shed I built. They say it'll hold up for way more than 20 years.
Mikey

[Dave Shepard]

Use all heartwood, clear as possible, and make sure the roof can dry out. White pine has been used many times for this. If your roof is under a tree, and cannot dry out, or is always covered in leaves and pine needles, it won't last as long.

[MEMountainMan]

Thank you very much for the replies. I will go with the white pine heartwood. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

[shinnlinger]

White pine used to be very common.   If you lap tar or rosin paper over each course you will get even better life.   You could also dip them in a perservative or uncle Larry's walnut stain. 

[D L Bahler]

You can also smoke your shingles. Construct a tall open shed with a large space above where you can stack the shingles tied up in loose bundles, leave a large open space below where you can build a fire. Then smoke them for a few weeks. This is the most effective preservative you can use, and if you have scrap wood it's pretty cheap. Pine works the best, because of the tar in the wood.

This sounds scary, but it was done this way for millennia in Central Europe and the Alps

Almost any wood actually works for shingles, rot and decay are not our biggest concern here. What really happens is they are washed away by the rain (broken down by UV light) or stripped away by wasps.

In the Alps, they consider Larch to be the best wood for shingles (look up, lärschenschindeln) but commonly will use fir and spruce (which they have a lot of) and expect 50 years out of such shingles, even when in the Bernese fashion they are made as very small thin shingles.

US woods, you can use anything that splits well (unless you are using a shingle mill, then your concerns are different). White oak was not used, because it does not split well.

[Roger Nair]

Riven Red oak was used often in my home area and sometimes white oak, some later era use of sawn soft wood shingles.  The following article documents the use of side lapped oak shingles.

http://www.apti.org/clientuploads/pdf/Houston-Fugelso-39-1.pdf