How many roofing nails do I need, and what size?
Short answer. Plan on roughly 320 nails per square (100 square feet) for 3-tab shingles and about 260 per square for most architectural shingles at four nails per shingle, or about half again as many if you use six. Most jobs use 1 1/4 inch galvanized coil nails for the field, plus 1 3/4 to 2 inch nails for the ridge cap.
Estimate the whole job in four steps
- Find your squares. Roof area divided by 100. A roofing measurement report or your estimate will list it.
- Field nails: squares times 260 for architectural at four nails, or about 390 at six.
- Starter strip and edges: starter runs along the eaves and usually the rakes and takes a few nails per foot of edge. Drip edge takes a nail at least every 12 inches.
- Ridge and hip caps: two nails per cap piece, using longer nails.
Add 5 to 10 percent for dropped nails and jams.
Worked example
A 25 square architectural roof at four nails per shingle needs about 6,500 field nails, plus a few hundred for starter, drip edge and caps. A common box of 1 1/4 inch coil roofing nails holds about 7,200, which covers it. At six nails per shingle, plan on about 9,750 field nails, so two boxes.
Which sizes to buy
- 1 1/4 inch galvanized coil or hand nails for field shingles, starter and drip edge.
- 1 3/4 to 2 inch nails for hip and ridge caps.
- Plastic cap nails or cap staples for synthetic underlayment.
- Whatever the shingle wrapper specifies if it differs from the above.
See how roofers measure a roof to get your square count, and what to expect on replacement day if you would rather hire it out.