Wood nailers 101

By Emma Peterson.

This product is not a nail gun and isn't always made of wood, so what is it?

In today’s industry, there are a wide variety of materials available, from the more traditional wood to metals and metal composites. In this new episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Karen Edwards sat down with Eric Younkin, leader of the product and engineered services team for Carlisle Architectural Metals (CAM) to talk about wood nailers, their role in securing the building envelope and what they can be made of. As the lead of the product and engineered service team, Eric is not only in charge of product development, but he also works with the development of product codes and testing.

Being in that position gives him a great perspective on products’ entire lifecycles, from development to how they work in the field. One example of this is his work with Carlisle’s wood nailers. He explained briefly what these are, sharing, “Wood nailers, some might refer to it as blocking, are used wherever we're going to have a termination of the roof system.” In general, this is used around the edge of the roof, but it can also be used internally around hatches and other things. These nailers are installed there to act as the foundation of the rest of the wall or roofing system. Eric elaborated, “Historically, these wood components allow you to build up the insulation equal to the height of the wood and allows for securement of both the roofing membrane and more importantly the edge securement, so the metal edge, whether that be a drip edge or some type of fascia.” In short, wood nailers are key to keeping a roof secure during severe weather.

As the name might reveal, these nailers were traditionally made out of wood. But, in today’s world of new materials, is wood still the best option? Eric explained that there are benefits and disadvantages, sharing, “Wood is time tested, it's been around and we’ve seen that it works well. But there are some cons. We have the question of do I use pressure treated or treated wood lumber or not... You also get a lot of warping, they're just not straight. So that becomes a pain as well when installing.” In an effort to address some of these challenges that come with working with wood, there has been a development of nailers made of galvanized or extruded metal.  

Read the transcript or Listen to the full episode to learn more about these metal nailer options and the benefits that they bring.