Ask Each Roofer How Lunch and Breaks Sit Inside the Bid

A roof bid usually gives you a start date, a finish date, and the number of days in between. What it often leaves out is how the crew spends those days. A roofing crew does not work a solid eight hours. It stops for lunch, takes breaks in the morning and afternoon, and in July it may pull back during the hottest hours of a St. Louis afternoon. Each stop changes how many working hours your job really takes, and so it changes the calendar you are planning around. This page is for the homeowner who has two or three bids open and needs one specific answer: how each roofer counts the hours between the first nail and the last.

Roofer comparison

Start by reading each bid for three things: the crew size, the hours per day, and whether the price is set by the square, by the day, or by the job. A bid priced by the square does not change if the crew takes an hour for lunch, but the finish date does. A bid priced by the day may move in price if the crew runs long. Neither version is wrong. You need to know which one you are holding, because the two bids you are comparing may be built on different clocks.

Then ask each roofer the same question in the same words: how many minutes of the workday are unpaid break and lunch, and does that time come out of the day or sit on top of it? Some roofers count a 45 minute lunch inside a ten hour day. Others count the crew as on site for the whole window and expect the homeowner to see them there. Write down the answer exactly as given. A verbal answer that changes on the second call is a sign to put the question in writing.

Watch for the word "shift." A shift at one company may run from 7 to 3:30 with a thirty minute lunch. At another it may run from 6:30 to 5, with two breaks and a lunch the bid never mentions. Neither is a criticism of the crew. The point is that the same finish date can mean very different numbers of working hours on your roof, and only the written answer tells you which one applies.

Ask also whether the break schedule changes between tear-off and install. Tear-off is loud and dusty, and some crews take their lunch earlier on tear-off days. Install days can run differently because the crew is spread across more of the roof. If a bid gives one day count for the whole job, ask for the day count for each stage. The stage that needs the most hours is usually the one a schedule squeezes, and the bid will not show it unless you ask.

Pay attention to where the break happens. A crew that breaks on the roof in the afternoon sun works differently from one that comes down to the driveway and sits in a truck. Ask where the crew takes breaks and whether there is shade on your lot. A roofer who has a set break spot usually has a plan for water and shade as well, so the answer tells you something about how the day is organized.

What it costs

Break and lunch time is rarely a separate line on a roof bid, so its cost is buried. If the bid is priced by the day and the crew runs over because of stops, you may see a change order or a higher total at the end. If it is priced by the square, the price is fixed, but the time you spend waiting for the job to finish is not. The cost you feel is the extra days of torn-up yard, a dumpster sitting in the driveway a little longer, and a household that has to rearrange its week around the crew.

Ask each roofer what happens to the schedule if the working day shrinks in a wet week or a short late-fall day. In St. Louis the light changes fast. Daylight saving time ends in early November, and by mid-November the window between the start of work and dusk is often shorter than the crew needs for a full tear-off on a typical house. A bid that says the job runs three days but does not say how many daylight hours it assumes is missing a number. Ask for the daylight assumption in writing.

In summer, the heat creates a different cost. Crews on a July roof may stop in the early afternoon, and a bid that assumes eight full working hours in July is optimistic. Ask each roofer whether the bid already assumes a heat break and what the schedule looks like if the afternoon is lost. A roofer who has an answer ready has probably lost afternoons before and planned for it.

If someone in your home is there all day, the break schedule matters more than the total. A crew that stops at noon for an hour changes when you can use your own driveway, your own kitchen, and your own quiet. The bid does not have to name those things, but the answer you get tells you how the roofer thinks about the day from your side of the fence.

What to ask

Send each roofer the same three questions, in writing, and keep the replies in one folder:

• How many minutes of each working day are unpaid break, and how many are paid break or lunch that sits inside the day?
• What daylight or hour count does the schedule assume, and what changes if a day ends early for weather or heat?
• Where does the crew take breaks on my lot, and is there shade or a set spot away from the materials?

Then compare the answers, not the adjectives. A roofer who says "we work a full day" has not answered the question. A roofer who says eight hours on site, with a thirty minute lunch and two ten minute breaks, starting at 7, has given you a number you can check against the calendar.

If two roofers give you different hours but the same finish date, the schedule is hiding something. Ask each one to walk through a single working day, from the truck arriving to the last bundle staged, and write the times down. Two sets of times will show you which bid is built on more hours and which is built on fewer.

Keep the list short. You do not need every break in the year. You need to know how each roofer counts the day, and whether the number they gave you on the phone matches the number on the page. Once those match, the rest of the comparison is simpler, and the finish date means the same thing on each sheet.