Cedar Shingle Roofs, How Many Bundles Make a Square?

How many bundles does it take to make a square?

Courtesy of Eastside Heritage Center

Cedar shingles for over 200 years have been used as roof coverings for our homes in this country. It was common for a shingle mill to take an order and then deliver the materials to the job site. Here is a great example I found on the Eastside Heritage Center website of such delivery.

(We are sharing this photo with the permission of the EHC. The Eastside Heritage Center is a non-profit educational institution with a high interest in making all of its collections available for learning and research.)

Nowadays one bundle of cedar shingles will layout 60 feet. At five inches “to the weather,” which is normal exposure, it would take four bundles to cover 100 square feet. We, in the roofing industry, use the term “one square” for a 100 square foot area, when measuring the roof, to determine the number of shingles and other materials to purchase.

Looking at this photo, this wagon has a pretty good load of roofing shingles. Look close, and give us your best guess for the amount this shingle wagon is hauling in the comment area at the bottom of this page.

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