The last place I bought, it used to belong to the guy who owned the local hardware store. Lots of junk, and a few treasures, to sift through. One thing he left behind in his driveway was a pallet full of white 3-tab shingles.

I also have a standalone garage/workshop that I need to reroof. I figured I could solve two problems--- minimize my materials costs and clear my driveway--- by making use of the shingles I already owned.

He uses Tamko shingles and we were flipping through his catalog. Several colors were x'ed out, because they're no longer available during current circumstances. He also said (a) a lot of manufacturers were moving away from manufacturing 3-tab, period, and just manufacturing architectural shingles, and (b) a lot of manufacturers are discontinuing their white colors because they're not very popular.

I thought that was really weird. Yeah, I can understand how they would eventually move away from 3-tab shingles-- they're not my favorite, either--- but in the South, white roofs are definitely not uncommon. I hopped on the Tamko website to see if they were advertising any white-ish shingles, and found the Old English Pewter color. My roof guy promised to check into it, and sent me back a screenshotted conversation with his supplier--- which said "No, sir. No one is making lighter colored three tabs at this time. From what I'm hearing maybe never again. Two major companies have stopped producing three tabs all together."

So--- keep that in mind.

We have to do architectural shingles here because of the wind issues. We did "white" shingles on our own house (actually silver-ish) and love them. House is grey and strangely, it all looks great together.

It's possible because:

White or Lighter colored roof shingles tend to collect

unsightly dark streaks,

better known as a blue-green algae. (gloeocapsa magma)

I don't care if I ever see another shingle for as long as I live, LOL.

I don't think I have ever seen a white one though?

If they are still good and can be used, why not.

6x6, white isn't usually solid white, but is generally light-colored. Lowes usually carries "Shasta White", if you want to do a GIS search for that. As you can guess, white shingles deflect the heat, and dark shingles absorb it. So in TX, we have more heat than we have snow. :)

If 3tab shingles aren’t installed on a straight line, it will show. Architectural shingles won’t show if not installed on a straight line. Architectural are bigger, less shingles to nail on per square. Roofing crews don’t have roofers who can use 3 tabs effectively, and if they do have the roofers, they will require more $ per square to install 3 tab.