Ask Each Roofer the Temperature Where They Stop Nailing

Most roof bids say when the crew will start. Far fewer say when the crew will stop. In St. Louis that second answer matters, because the metro can swing from a warm afternoon to a hard freeze inside a single week, and a shingle installed in the wrong air temperature can look finished while it is still unsealed.

Why the cutoff number is a comparison point

Each roofer has a working temperature below which the crew stops nailing or stops laying out the tabs. Some crews set one firm number. Others go by the feel of the morning, the forecast, or the product instructions. None of these is wrong on its face, but two roofers who answer differently will leave your roof in two different conditions if the weather turns on the day they were scheduled to finish.

Asphalt shingles seal with a strip of adhesive along the back of each tab. That adhesive needs warmth and sun to bond. When it does not bond, the tabs can lift in wind, and the lift often shows up after the first real gust rather than at the final walk. Many manufacturers' install instructions set a minimum application temperature, and the figure differs by product. Keys installs Atlas and Malarkey shingles only, so the number a crew uses should match the instructions printed for the exact product on your roof.

Cold changes the shingle itself too. A bundle that has sat outside in a deep freeze can be stiff, and stiff tabs crack at the cutout when a crew bends them to fit. A crack at the cutout is not a visible defect from the driveway, which is why it belongs in the comparison rather than in a conversation after the fact.

What St. Louis weather does to a start date

Our winters do not stay in one lane. A roof that begins on a 45 degree morning can meet a 28 degree overnight low before the final nail. Morning frost and dew are their own problem. The deck has to dry before the underlayment and shingles go on, and a crew that starts at seven may spend the first hour waiting for it. A roofer who never names the cutoff may still plan to finish, but the crew's answer at the curb will be a judgment made that morning. Ask for the number in advance, and ask what they do when a forecast crosses it.

Spring and fall carry a different risk. Daytime highs can climb into the summer range on a late-April roof, and the same adhesive that refuses cold can also soften the shingle surface during the day. Some crews will start early and stop before the afternoon heat makes the surface hard to walk safely. Each roofer should be able to say which of these limits they watch, and at what point they pull the crew off the roof.

How to ask the question

Put the question the same way to each roofer, and write down the answer word for word. The useful version has four parts:

• The lowest air temperature at which the crew will install shingles, and whether it is a fixed number or a judgment call.
• The temperature or time of day at which they hand-seal tabs instead of relying on the adhesive strip, and who checks that the seal took.
• What happens to the bundles and the open deck if the temperature falls below the limit after the tear-off has started.
• Whether the price changes if the crew must return in a warmer month, and whether that return date is written into the schedule.

A vague answer, such as saying the crew watches the weather, is still an answer. Write it down as vague. A roofer who names a number and a method has given you something to compare. A roofer who names a number but cannot say what happens after a cold morning has given you half of one.

What to check on the paper

The number should appear in the written scope or the start-date terms, not only in a phone call. If it is in the scope, you can compare it directly against the product instructions, and you can point to it if the crew stops on a cold morning and someone wants to argue about why. If the roofer will not put it on paper, that is part of the comparison too.

Ask also whether the crew will leave the roof open overnight when the forecast turns. Most of the open-roof questions in this comparison come back to the same answers: who covers the deck, who checks the tarp, and who answers the phone if rain starts. Those are separate questions from the cutoff, and they belong in separate columns on your sheet, so that one roofer's good answer on temperature does not hide a gap on overnight protection.

Questions to put to each roofer

1. What is the lowest air temperature at which your crew will install our shingles?
2. Which product instruction sets that limit, and do you keep a copy on the truck?
3. What do you do with shingle bundles that have been stored in a freeze?
4. If the forecast drops below your limit on the second day, what does the crew do with the open deck that night?
5. Will the start and finish dates in the written schedule move if the weather stops you, and who sends the revised date?

Keys Roofing can answer these questions for the Atlas and Malarkey products we install. To set a date or talk through the answers for your own roof, call the office at (314) 220-2333 and ask for the cutoff in writing before you book.