Certainteed Saint-Gobain company Highland Slate shingles are rated where the winds howl – 110 mph –> what a load of CRAP!!!! Nationwide

  On Novemeber 16th 2014, I had a certainteed HighLand Slate roof installed on my house. I chose these shingles because a) I liked the look, and B) they boasted a 110mph wind warranty. That is the reason I was willing to pay up to 30% more money for this product - to have a roof capable of withstanding high winds as my home is on top of a hill in N. Texas and we frequently have high wind conditions.

  My 1st obvious issue with the roof was later described to me as a staining issue by certainteed. I had large swathes of my roof where the color did not match the rest of the roof. Certainteed told me this issue would resolve itself in time - it's been > 40 days, the issue still exists. My contention was that the shingles placed on my house were aged and had not been properly stored and that is why the shingles were stiff and mis-colored. Certainteed argued that they we're not old, and had been properly stored (even Though I know for a fact they had been stored outdoors at the local supplier for at least 2 years). In N. Texas, that is a lot of harsh weather exposure!

  My 2nd and more significant issue was, and still is, these shingles are blowing off of my roof. In less than 40 days, we have had ~3 occasions of up to 35mph wind gusts. All 3 occasions have resulted in multiple shingles being blown off of my roof. my roofer has returned twice to repair these issues, and now that I have have paid him in full, I am waiting to see if he will return a 3rd time to repair the latest damage.

  As I stated above, my contention is these shingles were aged and improperly stored and the result is old and brittle product that will not seal well as the sealing strips are aged and weathered. Certainteed fought me on that claim stating that the shingles had *only* been stored at the suppliers location for about 2 years. However, they have not produced any proof of that and they refuse to disclose to me their secret decoding for their date of manufacture posted on the back of their shingles. So I have no way to validate anything they claim with regards to age of their product. They also do not have any published policy on inventory aging and management, while their competitors have very clear guidelines published here: http://www.gaf.com/Warranties_Technical_Documents/Steep_Slope_Technical_Advisory_Bulletins/English_Bulletins/Proper_Shingle_Storage_Steep_Slope_Technical_Point_TAB_R_2011_122.pdf

   One of the many guidelines published by GAF on material mgmt is "Do not store asphalt-roofing materials outdoors... for extended periods of time." i know for a fact that these were stored outdoors for at least ~2 years in N. Texas 100+ degree temperatures in the summer, and icy, cold and damp winter conditions also.

  My contractor opted to "upgrade" me to the certainteed IR (impact resistant) Highland Slate product. I am not sure why he did this because I did not ask for IR shingles, but I accepted the "upgrade" thinking it could not be a bad thing. In hind sight, I question whether he was offered a fire sale price from the supplier on the IR product since the supplier had had these shingles on the shelf (or on the back patio) for a long time and needed to get rid of them. Anyway, I believe the IR design of these shingles, and/or the brittle stiff result of aged and improperly stored shingles, makes them much less friendly to high-wind conditions. i *think* the IR component of this product equates to what appears to be a fiber glass mat on the back of the tabs of each shingle. This, in my mind, makes these tabs essentially an airplane wing waiting for a gust of wind to take off. In other words, they are stiff as a board, and when wind gets under them, they take off flapping in the wind and eventually break at the bend.

    in summary, I am now stuck with a Certainteed roof that obviously is not well-resistant to wind even though that is how Certainteed up markets this product and charges additional money for the wind resistant "capabilities". This is not even the windy-est time of year in N. Texas, so I fully expect this issue will continue at least thru spring when I am sure there will be many spring storms that will continue to rip the shingles off of my roof. I can only hope that the Texas Summer will melt these shingles together so they will stay down better, but in the meantime I am stuck with calling my roofer every time the wind blows so he can come repair this product which obviously does not perform as advertised, and the manufacturer does not seem to care. They boast about their "surestart" warranty, but so far they have used every technical argument they can fabricate to ignore my claim. So *if* my contractor is willing to continue repairing my roof, I guess that will be certainteed's remedy, even though they have zero skin in that game - ie, it's between me and my contractor.