Clock-In and Clock-Out: Which Hours Your Roof Bid Counts

A roof bid usually names a start date and a finish date, and most homeowners read those two numbers and stop. The hours in between get much less attention. Yet those hours decide when your street gets blocked by a trailer, when the dog can go out, when the nail guns can run, and whether a short afternoon gets counted as a full day. Before you compare totals, ask each roofer which hours the bid counts and how the crew marks time on your property.

Roofer comparison

Start with the plain question: what time does the crew clock in, and what time does it clock out? Some roofers start the meter when the truck turns onto your street. Others start it when the first person steps onto the lawn with a bundle. A few start it at the shop, which means the drive across town may already be billed to you before a single shingle is lifted. Ask each roofer to write the start point and the stop point into the bid, using the same words, so the two bids can be read side by side.

Then ask about the cleanup window. A crew that clocks out at four and leaves a dumpster half full is doing a different job from a crew that clocks out at four only after the magnet sweep, the nail check and the last load. The bid should say whether cleanup sits inside the hours or after them. If the answer is vague, mark it as vague in your notes. A vague answer is still information, and it tells you how the price will be argued about later.

Look also at how the bid handles weather. Hail season in the metro can run from spring into early summer, and a St. Louis August can push the crew off the roof by early afternoon when the deck gets too hot to walk safely. Freezing mornings add their own stop. Ask each roofer how an early stop for heat, cold, wind or lightning is counted. Is it a full day, a half day, or does the day simply shorten without a charge? Two bids with the same total can mean very different hours on the roof, and only the written answer tells you which one you are buying.

Winter starts deserve their own question. A crew that waits for frost to leave the deck or for ice to melt off the eave may be on your lot but not working, and the bid should say whether that waiting is billed. In a cold snap the difference between a morning spent warming the crew truck and a morning spent nailing can be several hours, and both can appear on the same line unless the bid separates them.

What it costs

Hours matter to the price because most crews price labor by the day or by the square, and either method can hide an hourly figure. A bid that calls a day eight hours and a bid that calls a day ten hours can look identical on the page while the crews on your roof work very different schedules. Ask each roofer to state the hours behind the day rate. If the number is not written down, ask what it is and write the reply beside the question.

Overtime deserves its own line. Some roofers push a long June day to finish ahead of a forecast storm, and the bid may carry an overtime rate or may absorb the extra time without a word. Ask whether a Saturday or a late finish carries an added charge, and whether that charge appears on the estimate or only on the invoice you receive at the end. The safest bid answers that in one sentence, with a figure or with the words no added charge, so there is nothing to interpret later.

Also ask what happens when the crew waits on you. A gate that is locked at seven, a homeowner who asks the crew to hold while an inspector is on the phone, a delivery that arrives late and leaves the crew standing on the drive: each of these eats clock time. The bid should name the rate for waiting and the point at which waiting starts to bill. Without that point written down, every idle hour becomes a disagreement after the work is finished, and the homeowner is the one who has to argue it.

A third cost sits in the travel itself. If the crew starts its day at a yard across the county, the drive time is part of the day the crew bills. Ask each roofer where the day begins, and whether the drive from the yard to your address is inside the billed hours. Two bids that start at different points can carry the same daily rate and still cost you different amounts.

What to ask

Put these questions to every roofer in the same order, and write each answer beside the question it answers:

• What time does the crew clock start, and where does the first minute get counted?
• What time does the clock stop, and do cleanup and the final magnet sweep fall inside that window?
• How many hours make up one billed day, and is that number written in the bid?
• How is an early stop for heat, cold, wind or lightning counted against the day?
• What rate applies to Saturday work or a late finish, and does it appear on the estimate?
• When does waiting on the homeowner start to bill, and at what rate?

Two more questions tend to sort bids quickly. Ask whether lunch counts as paid crew time, since some bids count it and others do not. Then ask who signs the daily time sheet and whether you can see a copy. A roofer who will show a sample sheet with the hours filled in is giving you a number you can check against the invoice later, which is the point of asking in the first place.

Reading the answers

Once the answers are in, put them into one table with a column for each roofer. The hours row matters as much as the total row. If one roofer clocks ten hours and bills nine, and another clocks eight and bills eight, the totals cannot be compared until you account for both. Keep your phone notes with the written bids and date every entry. If a roofer gives one answer on the phone and a different answer on paper, log both and ask for the written version to be corrected so the two match.

Keep in mind that a short answer is not always a weak one. A roofer who says the day is eight hours, lunch is unpaid, cleanup sits inside the window and heat stops are billed at half a day has answered every question in a few lines. A longer answer is only better if it says more about the hours and less about the reasons.

Keys Roofing, the contractor behind this site, can answer these same questions. Call the office at (314) 220-2333 and ask the six questions above in the same order you ask every other roofer on your list. Then set the answers next to each other and compare the hours before you compare the totals.