A Holiday Week Question Shows How Each Roofer Replies in Writing

A holiday week in St. Louis thins out roofing offices. Crews may be on the road, a dispatcher may take a long weekend, and the estimator who wrote your number may be out until Tuesday. A question you send on the Monday before Thanksgiving or the Wednesday before the Fourth of July can come back days later, or come back from someone who did not write your bid. That gap is worth comparing, because a roof bid is a set of answers, and those answers are only as useful as the person who gives them and the time it takes to get them.

This page is for a homeowner who has two or three written bids on the table and needs to know which roofer can answer a plain question while the office is short-handed. You do not need to call anyone to do this. Send each roofer the same written question on the same day, log when it went out, and log when the reply came back. Keep the replies in one place. Keys Roofing's office number is (314) 220-2333 if you want to confirm a point by phone, but the written reply is the one you will keep.

Pick the question before the holiday

Choose one question that has a clear answer in writing. Good candidates are the start date, who the crew lead is, or what the bid does if a delivery of shingles arrives short. Avoid questions that invite a sales speech. The point is to measure the reply, not the pitch. Write the question once, copy it word for word into each email or text, and use the same subject line for every roofer so the replies sort together.

Ask something that can be answered from the bid itself, so the roofer cannot hide behind "we will see once we are up there." For example: which shingle line is named on your bid, and which crew member will be on the roof on day one. Both have answers. A roofer who needs three days to say which shingle line is on the bid has told you something.

What to log for each reply

Use a simple table or a dated list. Record the following for every roofer:

• The date and time you sent the question, and the channel: email, text, or the office line.
• The date and time the first reply arrived, and who sent it.
• Whether the reply answered the question as asked, partly, or not at all.
• Whether the answer is written in the reply, or only mentioned on a call.

The fourth item matters more than the rest. A verbal answer over a holiday weekend is hard to check later. If a roofer replies by phone, send a short written note afterward that repeats the answer and asks them to confirm it. A reply that agrees with your note is a good sign. A reply that changes the answer is the kind of change you want to see before the crew arrives, not after.

Reading the reply, not the speed alone

A fast reply is useful, but a fast wrong answer is not. Check each reply against the bid line it refers to. If the bid names one shingle line and the reply names another, that mismatch is the finding. If the reply says the start date is fixed but the bid says it floats with weather, the two papers disagree, and the bid should be corrected in writing before you sign.

Watch for replies that answer a different question. A roofer who sends a sales summary when you asked about crew size has not answered. Write down what was asked and what came back, side by side. The gap between the two is the comparison.

When the reply is late

A holiday can explain a slow reply, and you should give it a fair window. Mark the number of business days each roofer took, not calendar days, and note whether the office was closed. A roofer who answers the day the office reopens is different from one who goes quiet for a week during an ordinary Tuesday. Record which one happened.

If no reply comes, send one follow-up that restates the question and the date you first asked it. Keep the follow-up short. Do not add new questions in the same message, because that makes it harder to tell whether the original was answered. If the second message also goes unanswered, that silence is a result you can compare directly against the others.

Freeze season adds a second clock

In St. Louis, a holiday question often runs into the freeze season. A roof started in late November can face cold nights, frozen decking in the morning, and ice at the eave while the job is open. Ask each roofer how the holiday schedule affects the start, and whether a freeze delay pushes the finish into the new year. Those answers belong in writing next to the holiday answer, because they set the same clock.

Ice damming is a real concern on a roof that stays open through a cold snap, and the answer on how the crew protects exposed decking should match the answer on the start date. If one reply says the crew will not start on a frozen morning and the other says they will start regardless, you have found a difference that matters more than the price.

Keep the record with the bid

File the log with the bid it belongs to, not in a separate inbox. Attach each written reply in date order and save it with its send and receive times. If a roofer later says the start date was never discussed, the log will show what was asked and when it was answered, without relying on memory. The same record helps when you call the office, because you can point to the exact line and the date it was sent.