have the lumber company deliver
& put them on the roof.they have a truck
for that.
you'll have to spread the packs around,
but it sure beats packing them up a ladder.
btw most shingles weigh about 60lbs a bundle
so get ready for your workout...
best of luck with your re-roofing.

Thanks, but it's too late for this. Hubby bought the shingles before he has gotten around to the tear off of the old shingles.

Rent a heavy duty man lift that can reach the lowest point of the roof. (I think it cost us about $75) With a friend to help load a bundle on the lift and a friend on the roof to help distribute them around, it'll still be a workout, but it won't kill you.

Watched my dad do it... one bundle at a time.. nail em, take a break. Didn't want any help .. made him work too fast hammering.

I helped carry em up on a roof i had done by a roofer friend on the weekend/cheap - gimme $50 and feed me deal. It was a pain.

Here's what I did: I made a flat wood board with wood edges that fit over the outside rails of an extension ladder. I placed a temporary pulley up on the roof top. I loaded a stack of shingles on the wood board and then as I pulled the rope/pulley, the board with shingles would move up (slide up) the ladder to the top where my helper would unload them ... worked great! Good Luck!

Rent a power ladder from a local tool rental shop.

It lifts the shingles up a ladder automatically.

Here is a link that might be useful: Power Ladder.

be careful with a ladder-vator. When they get to the top, some just drop the bundles onto the roof. I know some guys that made a big hole in the roof when the bundle got thrown.

My porch and garage roof are overlooked by upper story windows. Since we had not yet finished the inside of the house, I carried the bundles up the stairs inside the house and handed them out a window. My roofing crew was actually framing and finish carpenters who would and could do almost every job about builidng a house. Since they were working by the hour, my labor saved a lot of money and speeded the job while making it easier for them.

Thank you everyone for your input. I think hubby has designed something like tommyw talked about. Did a test run with it and it worked just fine.
Again, thank you for all the suggestions.

Going off of tommyw's idea, how about a 2x4 frame long enough to reach from the ground to the roof at an angle and mounting the pully to the top of the frame? Make sure there is a spot on the frame to tie the rope so you don't have to hold it while waiting for it to be unloaded.

Ran into a kid years ago who stated he could easily pack two bundles of 3-tab shingles up two stories all day long. When asked to prove it, said he had hurt his back and couldn't show us how it's done!

For 16 square of roofing I split the bundles in half, walked halfway up the ladder and flopped 'em on the edge of the roof. Single story ranch you only have to go up 4 or 5 rungs and you're there.

I had about 11 square, couple years ago, single story ranch, I think I might of broken bundle into thirds, but yes, short way up the ladder and flop'em on the roof. I actually didn't care how many trips, my house, no hurry to get it done.

Ran into a kid years ago who stated he could easily pack two bundles of 3-tab shingles up two stories all day long. When asked to prove it, said he had hurt his back and couldn't show us how it's done!

2 bundles is not a big deal, i USED to do it all the time. going up the ladder is the easy part. walking up to the ridge is wha twears on your legs quick. when i worked on a roofing crew 2 bundles is what you expected to carry up EACH TIME you came up the ladder. that applied to every man on the crew except the owner of the company. if you went down for water or anything you grabbed 2 bundles and brought them up. one guy put 3 bundles on his shoulder and took them up, we had bet him he could not do it and he did.

that same guy had a bet that he could put 2 square worth on the roof faster than the foreman could. he had us stack 3 bundles on his shoulder and headed up. came back and got his other 3 and took them up. the foreman simply reached down and grabbed a bundle at a time and THREW them up! he won hands down.

now, i would do good to handle taking 1 up at a time. but 1 thing i learned early in roofing, NEVER bust open the bundle to take them up. the shingles will stay flat and balanced as long as the paper is intact, but if you try to take up half a bundle to save on weight you fight twice the battle each trip!

Im surprised there are still areas where they hand load. Out in the west we are spoiled. The suppliers load the roof either with a boom/conveyuor truck, or lift beds.

When i was back east in the eighties we hand loaded. I stuck to one bundle at a time. Figured i had to work all day. It is easier to keep he bundles intact rather than split them up. More weight but easier to handle. I did two on a single story once. Never again after that. Three bundles is awesome!

What do we have to look forward to when we retire,(i am somewhat), BAD BACKS/BAD ATTITUDES!

around here the suppliers have flat bed trucks. you are lucky if they bring a forklift to get them off the truck! we have way more single story structures than multi story in my area, so i guess this is why.

as a matter of a fact, the only time we used a conveyor when i worked for the roofing company was if it was over 2 stories. we did a 4 story dorm at a college and used it then. that was the first job i worked for them, so i was thinking they would all be like that. i found out the next week that as low man onthe pole i was the conveyor most of the time. due to the rule of bringing shingles up whenever you went down, i was always told to go get someone somethign from the truck. even if they did not REALLY need it they sent me just so i would have to get them shingles.

Any good Roofing Material Distributor will and expects to bring a fork lift to the job
with the shingles. But, then again, usually they work with professional contractors...a service they render to their customer. Lowes and HD can do the same...but only thought
a contractor. They dont want anyone falling this should not be up there.

chuck, it is no longer the distributor's problem once it is offloaded at the site. they cannot sit around there all day waiting on you to finish the roof. they drop and go to teh next job as quickly as possible. and they SURE don't want to be held liable for stacking 6 or 7 THOUSAND pounds of shingles in a small area on a roof. cause you do that and in many cases the shingles will end up in the living room floor!

I bought my shingles, carried them home on my utility trailer. We built a "slide" from 2x4s and plywood. We tied a rope to the handle of a red American Flyer wagon the kids used to use. We put the wagon on the slide (about a 75 degree angle), put a bundle in the wagon, and pulled it up the slide onto the roof. We dumped out the bundle and let the wagon back down the slide for the next bundle. Oh yeah, we ruined the poor wagon doing that. They just aren't built for that type of work.

Now, I'm ready to shingle another house. But, I'm now 71 and not up to manhandling shingles onto the roof. I either have to find a supplier who'll put them on the roof or rent one of the above mentioned lifts to do it.

Well, I haved read all this comments, and Let me tell you all that I haved invented a product that will up 2 bundles of shingles at a time, with out using the ladder. My product will lift up to 50 feet high (two story), and rotates 360 degrees. My I didn't even had to walk down the edge of the roof to grab them at all. Safty was the most inportant issue when desighning of this product. Let me tell you all folks. IT DOES WONDERS...
I need imput from everyone. This product is in the reasurch and developmet stages at this tim and in the process of obtaining a patent. PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT.

Yeah, it's called this thing: http://www.straatsmainc.com/Ultimate.pdf

or this thing: http://www.shingleelevator.com/