Brief History of Roofing in North America
The American roofing industry finds its roots in the Jamestown colony in Virginia in the fifteenth century. The early settlers of North America had to figure out how to create a society out of the wild. The original thatched roofs built by settlers either rotted in the wet or easily burst into flames in the drought. It quickly became evident that a better building material was needed.
The homebuilders of the 1600s turned to a roofing style reserved for only the rich back home in Europe – shingles. The first shingles were made of oak. Because North America had plentiful forests, wood was plentiful and made shingles inexpensive to produce. North American shingles were made of white cedar because it was lightweight, easy to work with and shape, and resistant to rot. The cedar shingles were weatherproofed using pine tar.
While the cedar shingles were an improvement the North American roofing industry sought something better, longer-lasting, low maintenance, and safe. Builders experimented with a variety of different materials including slate, tile, copper, zinc, and tinplate. In the 1840’s composition roofing came about, which combined pine tar slathered all over paper and covered with a shower of sand. The only drawback was the use of pine tar, which became expansive and hard to obtain. Pine tar soon was replaced by coal tar, followed by asphalt. By the 1920s, asphalt roofing had become a leading roofing material.
By this time some contractors, often the smaller ones, searched for a way to install asphalt composite roofing more easily, with fewer workmen, and with a wider choice of application procedures.
In 1901, the H.M. Reynolds Company of Grand Rapids Michigan came to the rescue. According to the “Old American Manaul,” a 1937 publication of the American Asphalt Roof Corporation, Reynolds was the first producer of cut asphalt shingles.
Reynolds at first simply took roll asphalt composite material, cut it out into shingles by hand, and applied it to a group of houses. The result was a popular sensation. Shingles could overlap, thus covering the nail holes. The shape and overlapping offered a pleasing appearance without the occasionally unsightly seams of roll roofing.
A band of visionaries dreamed of thousands of homes across North America clad with the reasonably priced, easy to install, safe shingles. The development of the cut asphalt shingle revolutionized both the roofing and building industries. All it would take to push the industry “over the top” would be reliable technology to cut and package the shingles for shipment. Reichel & Drews would be there to provide the innovative breakthroughs.