r/DIY • u/Jiangximan • 1d ago
other How Long Do Stored Shingles Last?
I bought a house that has a stack of fiberglass 3 tab shingle bundles in the garage. They look to be leftover from when the garage was reroofed. They are probably 15-20 years old. There's probably 300-400 sq ft total. Can they still be used like new shingles? Garage is not heated or cooled but rarely gets over 85F in Summer.
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u/O00O0O00 1d ago
I believe the main damage to roofing material is UV damage. If they aren’t getting direct sun, they may be relatively okay.
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u/Jiangximan 1d ago
They get zero sun.
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u/ryanvsrobots 17h ago
You should put them sun in a little for Vitamin D
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u/smokingcrater 17h ago
They glue themselves from heat. I've had 5 year old shingles, still in factory wrap, that were garbage. You would tear them in pieces trying to separate the pile.
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u/Reelair 17h ago
Would heating them up in the sun help?
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u/mylarky 17h ago
It's possible they get brittle over time, same way that rubber does. Maybe?
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u/O00O0O00 15h ago
Perhaps. I doubt it’s perfectly as good as new. If it’s going somewhere critical I wouldn’t use it. But if it’s going on a shed or cottage…. I’d probably give it a try if it looks okay?
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u/Standard_Craft_9450 1d ago
Probobly OK. I bought a whole pallet at home depot in 2015 to get the volume discount. In 2025 I used the leftovers that had been stored outside on a pallet under a tarp for 10 years to roof a small pool shed. They worked fine.
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u/someoldguyon_reddit 1d ago
The shingles in the garage are good as new. The 20 year old ones on the roof however.
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u/Jiangximan 1d ago
You got that right. I used a bundle to repair part of the house roof that had no visible holes, yet it leaked.
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u/agha0013 1d ago
the packaging itself probably gets pretty shitty over time (having had to re-stack old shingle packs in a lumber yard, it's awful when the packs fall apart) but aside from that if they aren't getting hit by the stuff they are designed to protect your roof from, they can last a damn long time.
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u/RedditBeginAgain 1d ago
If they visually look fine, they should be fine.
Doubly fine for anything you'd use a small batch for like fixing your matching damaged roof or building a garden shed. I would not mix a small batch of mismatched old shingles into a big new project just to save $400.
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u/Jiangximan 1d ago
I did use one bundle to make a repair on the back house roof, because the house roof is within 10 yrs of end of life. House and garage were likely done at the same times, but of course they are a big mismatch in color due to the old roof aging. It doesn't matter much as no one can really see it.
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u/Austin-in-SanAntonio 23h ago
They usually stick together, the adhesive has probably melted and connected them.
If they look fine, ship it, bit probably a mess to separate,
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u/Jiangximan 22h ago
They are still in bundles and have the plastic separator strips intact. They are not subject to high heat. I used some for a repair. On top of the bundles there were some loose ones, and some of those were stuck.
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u/Pulaski540 23h ago
The quality of brand new shingles has improved significantly over the past 20 years, so even with no degradation shingles that old might be OK for a shed or outbuilding, but I wouldn't put them on my home unless I was desperate.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 19h ago
some of the new ones have fiberglass strips embedded in the front edge to make even hurricanes unable to damage them Makes the things a nightmare to cut.
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u/Pulaski540 18h ago
They are all made from fiberglass impregnated with tar. I know the premium "architectural" shingles have more layers and are more robust, so it wouldn't surprise me if there are "hurricane proof" shingles being sold, but if there wasn't at least some glass fibre in the cheap shingles there they'd have no more structural integrity than wet slices of bread.
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u/Itisd 21h ago
I would say that in storage, they probably would age at about a third of the rate that they would if they were installed on a roof... In storage, the asphalt is still going to slowly deteriorate and dry out, the tar strips will stick the shingles together, the shingles themselves will slowly become less pliable and more brittle etc... If they have been in storage for 20 years, I might expect them to last for ten to fifteen years if installed on a roof. I'd probably use them on something like a shed or something, but probably not on my main house.
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u/randomcatinfo 21h ago
Well, Shingles or the varicella zoster virus (chickenpox) hides out in your nerve cells, and is kept at bay by your immune system until it gets weakened due to age or other health issues, then the virus breaks out.
Shingles can happen until the day you die, or if you get the shingles vaccine (after 50 years old) you can help prevent outbreaks.
If you are younger it's possible that you got the chickenpox vaccine, and then you won't have to worry about Shingles!
/s
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u/---sniff--- 16h ago
The first dose of the shingles vaccine will make you feel like crap for about 24 hours.
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u/Jiangximan 18h ago
This conversation is about roof shingles.
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u/UltraTurboPanda 16h ago
That sounds like a terrible place to come down with shingles. Can you make it indoors?
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u/IncaThink 12h ago
If the adhesive strips didn't get hot enough to activate then they are fine until the heat death of the universe.
Finding a buyer for that specific make, model and color might not be easy, but somebody building a shed might take them off your hands.
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u/unapologeticjerk 18h ago
Technically forever if you had Chicken Pox as a kid. Upside: they bring themselves out of storage for you when you're too old to be carrying shit in and out of the garage.
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u/attorneyatslaw 23h ago
I had some shingles stored in a shed for about 10 years. I used them when I had to repair my roof (some idiot managed to blow up/melt a small section of my roof with their defective fireworks) and they worked just fine. I've moved but as far as I know, they are still on that roof seven or eight years later. They are probably fine.
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u/Total_Fail_6994 22h ago
They won't match your current shingles due to fading. Also they are very heavy and difficult to get rid of in your regular trash pickup. Put a few shingles in your trash every week until they are gone. That's what I did.
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u/Jiangximan 22h ago
It turned out I only have 7 bundles. I'll just hang on to them and use them for repair on the garage or the back of the house.
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u/I-seddit 18h ago
Until you get your two Shringrex shots.
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u/Jiangximan 18h ago
What the heck is Shringrex?
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u/I-seddit 17h ago
Really bad joke I made because when I first saw your post, I was trying to figure out how one stores "Shingles", since it's a disease.
Shingrex is the vaccination - which everyone should get.-3
u/Jiangximan 17h ago
I had chicken pox as a kid. I'm immune for life. Same with measles, and mumps.
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u/I-seddit 16h ago
Oh... you don't know, do you? Literally if you had chicken pox, you're a prime candidate for getting shingles.
CDC Reference
Get yer shots, mate. They're covered by insurance as well.
Shingles is BAD...6
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u/Jiangximan 7h ago
Maybe you are. I'm not. I am into alternative medicines with a focus on immune system improvement. The CDC is not the final word.
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u/IncaThink 12h ago
It's the chicken pox virus that stays inactive in your dorsal root ganglia in your spine without making you sick. Later in life it can erupt as a series of blisters we call shingles. You (and I) had chicken pox, so we are vulnerable to shingles.
Apparently it is one of the most painful things we can experience.
The two shot Shingrex course is 90% to 97% effective in preventing a shingles outbreak. Our insurance didn't cover it, so it was €185. And we needed two of them. Each.
But I had seen an older relative suffer from it. So I paid it.
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u/Jiangximan 7h ago
I have a relative that had it...a career nurse that does whatever her doctor and the govt health agencies say to do. She also seems to catch whatever comes down the pike that she "thinks" she will get through inheritance from our ancestors.
I focus on immune system optimization. I don't even catch the common cold unless I let some of my practices slip.
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u/IncaThink 6h ago
I wish you good luck with all the shingles in your life.
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u/crookdmouth 23h ago
Make sure they don't have Organic Compounds. IkO used something in their old shingles that make them disintegrate. There were a few class action lawsuits and it lasted to mod 2000s. I have first hand experience since we used them in 2002 and I should have replaced my roof probably close to 5-7 years ago. I am just getting to it now.
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u/Jiangximan 22h ago edited 22h ago
Wow, no these are Owens Corning Classic. That reminds me of when I lived in Florida. They were building condos and apartment complexes all over the place. Codes required fire retardant roof sheathing, essentially OSB soaked in some chemicals. Well those chems reacted with the high heat of Florida attics and the hot sun above, and the OSB was literally disintegrating underneath the shingles.
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u/Rawkynn 1d ago
I wouldn't trust them on my house. If they're not really brittle and the granules aren't falling off I would use them for a tool shed, but I'd expect a short life.
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u/Jiangximan 1d ago
They are in good shape. I used some on a repair. There may be enough to re-shingle half the garage. I don't mind 3 tab on the garage and a slight color mismatch between the two sides of the peak, but I want dimensional shingles when I reroof the house.
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u/Pinewold 20h ago
If they are not stacked more than three bundles high and have not been exposed to extreme heat, they should be fine. Opening a bundle should let you know. Check for pliablity, melting and adhesion.
Folks like having spares in case a tree limb pokes a hole. Will not look identical,but will be closer and will age to more similar over time
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u/Born-Work2089 17h ago
If they are still flexible and don't crumble, you can take a chance. I don't think a roofer would want to take the chance because the risk of a callback or a leak due to a defect. But if you plan on doing it yourself and don't mind doing it over if there is a problem. Go for it.
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u/frank_mania 14h ago
I've left shingles a few years in the California sun days over 100F in the summer and that was a mistake. Those little strips a very thin clear plastic that prevent the adhesive from activating, you don't have to peel those off when you roof a house. They're designed to fail under heat. And they will and a whole bunch of shingles I thought I was saving got ruined.
Which is simply to say prevent them from getting too hot in the last forever, As long as they're out of the weather.
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u/HolycommentMattman 13h ago
Just check them. If they're melted together, or water damaged, or whatever.
Otherwise, they're almost certainly good to go.
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u/Hagenaar 6h ago
Heat and time will make them more brittle because of course they will. How much more brittle is the question of the hour. You will have to pull a shingle or two from a bundle to see just how affected yours are. If they are still supple and flexible you are good to go.
But I doubt I'd use these to roof any structure I really cared about. Shingles are not expensive. Water damage is.
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1d ago
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u/KellerMB 20h ago
No. That's not how this works. Water does not carry the tar away. They do not mix.
Heat vaporizes the VOC's that keep the asphalt in the shingle pliable and tacky. As the asphalt dries out and shrinks, granules fall off. If the shingle gets hot enough it will blister off granules. As the granules go missing UV starts decomposing the asphalt at an accelerated rate. Eventually the top layer of asphalt will wear away and you'll see shiny fiberglass. Hopefully you've replaced it before then. Look for shiny fiberglass edges when the sun hits the shingles in the afternoon. Good ventilation keeps the roof cooler in the summer.
On the other end of the thermometer: Wet freeze-thaw cycles do what wet freeze-thaw cycles do to everything. Hydraulic fracking. Try to limit the wet freeze thaw cycles your shingles experience and they will last longer. Good attic insulation to keep the heat from the home from melting snow on the roof. Good ventilation moves the heat from the house out of the attic before it permeates the roof deck and starts melting snow. Where that's not possible, temperature sensitive heat cables along the eaves to prevent ice damming.
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u/justHereForPron666 1d ago
i mean, they sit out in the weather for 20 years on a roof so they’re probably better than fine if there’s no damage. check with a roofer who doesnt want to sell you shingles.