Just how big is a roof shingle, anyway?
Ever wonder about the measurement history of roofing shingles? We didn’t think so.
We hadn’t really wondered much about it, either, until Pawel’s father and creator of Archer Roofing decided to share it with us.
In the 60s and 70s in Canada, imperial shingles were replaced by metric shingles as a way of speeding up roof installations.
Metric shingles are a few inches bigger, therefore fewer shingles were required in the installation of a roof surface and they were more popular with installers.
Currently in Canada, most shingles are produced in metric sizes but some manufacturers (like IKO) produce shingles in imperial sizes.
The typical size of asphalt roofing shingles is as follows:
- 13 1/4 inches in Width (metric shingles), or 12 inches (imperial)
- 40 inches in Length (metric shingles), or 36 inches (imperial)
- The thickness is about 1/8 inch, although fibreglass shingles are thinner by nature than tar paper shingles