Roofers left loose nails everywhere
Roofers often leave behind clipped or loose nails in ridge vents and landscaping that take months to clear out completely. These stray metal pieces pose ongoing safety hazards and are difficult to catch entirely, even when crews use magnets.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Pulling the loose nails out manually, calling the original roofer to come collect them, or ignoring them.Did this help you?
- 2running magnets in the landscapingDid this help you?
- 3doing multiple sweeps of the property with a magnetDid this help you?
- 4Using rolling magnets and hand magnets on lawnsDid this help you?
- 5Cutting the lawn short before the job to help magnets find debrisDid this help you?
- 6installing silicone flashing independently to cover exposed woodDid this help you?
- 7Sweeping the yard independently with a magnetic roller or sweeperDid this help you?
- 8Notifying the roofing company or asking them to come back out to re-magnet the yardDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“The ridge vent on my house has nails clipped in it all the way down. Is this normal? Roof is about 20 years old I’ve only lived here since 2021, but they appear that they’ve always been there. Is there an actual reason for this?”source ↗
“Had my roof replaced recently. After the crew's cleanup, I borrowed a magnet and swept the yard, and this is the pile of nails I picked up - around 50% was in flower beds, the rest just in grass around the house.”source ↗
“I still wouldn't expect to see nails through the shingles with nothing covering them, should I be concerned with the nails or is this a normal install and I just dont know much about roofing?”source ↗
“I would have expected the nails to be covered or that last row to be tar down.”source ↗
“I ended up getting sil flashing and installing it myself to cover the wood but the nails are still exposed.”source ↗
“I removed the hedges this spring and I’ve been picking up nails for months. Literally hundreds of nails, they seem to never end.”source ↗
“Taking off a few hundred shingles means a few thousand nails. Good crews will have the ground guys run magnets in the landscaping but even then, they aren’t the greatest at reaching everywhere.”source ↗
“You’ll be finding nails for the rest of the year”source ↗
“Im convinced its impossible to get them all. My roof was done 5 years ago and i still randomly find a nail here and there.”source ↗
“Having a new roof done and from outside it looks great and just needs finishing. Just when i went in loft today saw few nails sticking out of joyces (sorry if i used the incorrect term). I just though id ask some experts, if this is normal?”source ↗
“The guys doing it seem nice lads and dont want to make an issue over nothing.”source ↗
“Tired of hearing I found some missed nails . Are these worth the price ???”source ↗
Where this came up
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