Ask Each Roofer How Many Hands Touch Your Bid Before You Sign

Three roofers quote the same house, and the totals look close enough that you stop reading the paperwork. Then the question that matters comes up: who actually measured this roof, who wrote the number down, and who will answer the phone once the crew is on your house. A bid can pass through a phone receptionist, a sales rep, a measurer, an estimator, a checker and a scheduler before it reaches your kitchen table. Each of those hands can change a line. Asking how many hands touched the bid, and who they are, is a plain way to compare roofers before you sign anything.

Map the path before you compare prices

Ask each roofer to describe, in order, every person who touches your bid between the first phone call and the signed contract. Write the answer down with a name or a job title beside each step. A typical path runs like this: someone takes the call, someone books the visit, someone walks the roof or measures from the ground, someone builds the takeoff, someone prices it, someone checks the arithmetic, and someone sends it to you. Some companies do all of that with one person. Others split it across three or four people. Neither arrangement is automatically better. The answer does show you where a mistake can enter the paperwork and where your follow-up questions should go.

Pay attention to the steps that happen on a phone call and the steps that happen in writing. A number given by voice has no paper trail until someone types it into a proposal. If the roofer cannot say who types it, or whether the typed figure is checked against the field sheet, you have learned something about how the bid was built.

What each handoff can change

Square count is the most common thing to drift. If the person who measured the roof is not the person who priced it, the figure on the page may have been copied from a rough note with a missing slope or a transposed digit. Ask who measured, whether that person wrote the square count on site, and whether anyone compared it against a second source such as aerial measurements or a photo set. The same questions apply to pitch, the number of layers on the existing roof, the count of valleys and the count of penetrations. A single wrong figure near the top of the bid moves every line that depends on it.

Materials are the second place the bid can drift. A salesperson may describe a shingle line on the phone, while the order sheet names a different product code or a generic category. Both descriptions can be accurate, but only if the order sheet matches the proposal you are reading. Ask for the product name on the proposal and the product name on the order form, then compare them line by line. Keys Roofing installs Atlas and Malarkey shingles, so any roofer you compare should be able to name the product line in writing, not just a general category such as architectural shingle.

Labor is the third place. A bid that passes through a scheduler may list a crew size that the foreman does not plan to use. A bid that passes through an estimator may assume a tear-off that the crew will run in a different order. You will not catch these differences by reading the total. You catch them by asking who plans the crew, and whether the person who plans the crew has seen the bid.

Where a missing hand shows up later

When a handoff is skipped, the cost usually appears after you have signed. A change order is the usual form. The crew opens the roof, finds rotten decking or a second layer nobody counted, and the contract price no longer matches the work. If the person who wrote the bid never saw the field sheet, the first time anyone compares the two is on your porch in the middle of the job. That is a poor moment to learn that the scope had a gap.

Ask each roofer what happens when a field finding does not match the bid. Ask who makes that call, who writes it down, and how long the crew waits for a written decision before it stops work. A roofer with a clear answer has already thought about the handoff. A roofer who says it will be sorted out when it comes up has told you the handoff is informal.

Permit paperwork can also reveal the chain. Many St. Louis County permit desks ask for the contractor's name on the application, and that name should match the company on your contract and proposal. If the permit lists a different company, a different name or a person who does not appear anywhere else in the bid, ask who that person is before the permit is pulled. Missouri does not license roofers at the state level, so the paper trail in your hands is the main check you have on who is responsible for the work.

Roofer comparison

Once you have each roofer's path on paper, line the three or four paths up side by side. Count the handoffs. Note which steps happen in writing, which happen by phone, and which happen only in someone's memory. A roofer whose bid moves through two people and a written checklist gives you more places to catch an error than a roofer where one person takes the call, measures the roof, writes the number and sends the proposal. A short chain is not proof of accuracy, and a long chain is not proof of carelessness. What the list does is show you where a second look is most useful.

Then compare the answers on the three most important items: the square count, the product name and the crew plan. If two roofers agree on all three and the third does not, the disagreement tells you where to call. If all three disagree, you have learned that the bids are not describing the same roof, and no comparison of totals will fix that until the scope is settled in writing.

What it costs

Handoffs cost time as much as they cost money. A longer chain often means a longer wait between the walk and a written bid, and that wait pushes the start date. Ask each roofer how many days pass between the visit and the document in your hands. Then compare that number with the date you need the roof finished. In St. Louis, freeze and thaw cycles make a late-fall start harder to hold, and a bid that waits three weeks for an office check can leave you with an open roof or a tarp over the winter.

A review step does not automatically add a line to the price. Ask whether the check is part of the bid as overhead or billed as a separate service. Many roofers treat internal review as part of how they run the office. If someone describes it as a fee, that is a line you can compare directly against the others. If nobody mentions it, ask whether any charge applies to the review and get the answer in writing.

Also ask whether the same person who wrote the bid will answer your questions during the job. If the answer is no, find out who the replacement is and how quickly that person responds. A bid that cost a little less on paper can cost more in delay if the only person who knows the scope is hard to reach.

What to ask

1. Who measured the roof, and did they write the square count on site or type it in later?
2. Who priced the job, and who checked the arithmetic before the proposal left the office?
3. What is the product line named on the proposal, and does the order form use the same name?
4. Who plans the crew size, and has that person seen the bid?
5. If a field finding does not match the bid, who decides, and how long does the crew wait for a written answer?
6. Who will answer your questions once the crew is scheduled, and is that person the one who wrote the bid?
7. How many days pass between the walk and a written bid in your hands?

Write the answers next to each roofer's name and compare them on one page. If you want to go through these questions with Keys Roofing, call the office at (314) 220-2333 and ask for the same written answers you would request from any other roofer on your list.