Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday!  This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please keep it to one tip per person per week. Data dumps are tedious for me to moderate and also for readers to use. If you have lots of tips, great -- post one per week. This is an ongoing project. If you want to comment on someone else's tip, that's welcome, but again, don't use that as an excuse to post a second, unrelated tip of your own.

Rule #4:  please keep your contributions reasonably short -- say, 500 words or less. If you have something longer to say, please post it elsewhere -- a free Dreamwidth account is one option -- and simply put a link here. Teal deer comments won't be put through.

Rule #5:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #6: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

salvage asphalt shingles, cheap designer roofing

[(Anonymous)]

--edited to add link ! ---

Save money now on roofing a shed or small outbuilding, like a garden shed, chicken or goat shelter, wood storage room, but the skills could come in handy if you ever need to make yourself a shelter ( aka a shack or cabin somewhere/sometime)

Shingles at the cheap bog box store are about $40 a packet right now, that is about 32 sq ft of shingles for $44 after tax.

First step is to determine how large the roof is, and figure 1 package is 32 sq ft, and then you need extras, there are directions for application and how much to buy on the back of the package of shingles, or look online. You can look at a package of shingels at the big box store to see how much coverage is, and you are probably going to go there anyways to by other supplies for the project. SO, then you will know how many shingles you need.

There are 2 ways to obtain cheap or free shingles, and they can be combined.

The first is to go to your large roofing supply distributer, not the bog box supply store. When I asked, the large independent roofing supply store has an area or list of the shingles that are discontinued and not enough packages for a standard roofing job. These are brand new, first quality and they are selling them for $20 a packet.

If you want to save even more, ask around for homeowners extra shingles. You can ask on Freecycle, buynothing, or look at those lists or craigs list. I have managed to get most of mine this way for free, but realy, in the city, people do not store as much supplies as some do in my area. So, you may need to default to method 1 for half off. You may also find a partial roll of 30lg felt ( roofing underlayment, also called tar paper) Check to make sure that shingles or tar paper is still sound before bringing it home. so, stored outside covered is good. Out in all weather for toolong is not. see that they will come apart and aren't stuck together. Free shingles are often open packages, so just count or estimate what you have.

Then, count up how many of what color you have and decide on layout. You might decide that all the darker greys are color 1 and all the light greys and greens are color 2 or whatever you decide.

I am giving a link here I posted at Green wizards ( titled barn raising). https://greenwizards.com/node/1615. Scroll down, and you will see a photo, titled Inspiration, of a house I drove by in the city near me that has purposely done 2 color shingle roof. Thaat one is done with 2 high contrast colors alternating every other one. Shingles overlap the one beneath by a third, which is why you see the pattern you do. Scroll down a bit further to see the photo I titled "scavaged roof" and you can see the work in progress that I did. My pattern was 2 red, one light. The light was mostly grey with every so often a light green in place of grey.

I did the actual labor myself, as a slightly built retired woman. Well, for more than half of it, then a male friend joined me for the day and we did the rest together. He certainly could carry more onto the roof at once, I carried about 3 shingles at a time up there. I handed the correct colors over to be hammered on that day. But, even in my slowness, it would have gotten done, and it is good to build skills.

Right now, I am working on the other half of the building. And, soon, in a week or two, will have to start its roof. Looks like it will be majority green with bits of other colors on the south side...as a friend of mine had wuite alot of green 3 tb shingles, and people these days usually use the more 3-D looking ones

Re: salvage asphalt shingles, cheap designer roofing

[(Anonymous)]

There was an episode of Maine Cabin Masters where they moved an old cabin and then re-roofed it using all leftover shingles in many colors. It looked absolutely gorgeous.