Count the Written Confirmations Each Roofer Sends Before the Crew Rolls

When two roofers quote the same roof, the paper that follows each bid tells you how the job will run. A number on a page is one thing. The confirmations that arrive after you say yes are another. Before a crew backs a trailer up your drive, you should have a written start date, a written scope, and a written record of every change the roofer agrees to. Count how many of those documents each roofer sends, and when they arrive, and you have a comparison you can actually make.

What you are counting

Start with three kinds of confirmation. The first is the start date: the day the crew is booked and the window it might slide within. The second is the scope: the list of what gets torn off, what gets installed, and what is left alone, such as the chimney flashing, the drip edge, and the vent pipe boots. The third is the change record: any item added, dropped, or repriced after the first signature.

Each roofer should be able to produce each of these in writing without much prodding. Some will send all three in one packet. Others will send a proposal, then a separate schedule email, then nothing until the trucks arrive. Neither approach is unusual in this area. Missouri does not license roofers and does not set a required form for a roofing contract, so the homeowner is the one who decides how much paper is enough. The difference between a thin file and a full one shows up later, when you need to point to a date or a line and find that nothing was written down.

Set up one tally for every roofer

Use a plain sheet with three columns and one row per roofer. Mark the number of written items each roofer sent before you signed, the number sent after, and the number of days between your signature and the first written schedule. Leave a cell blank if nothing arrived. A blank cell is information, and it is the one that homeowners often skip over when they compare bids.

Keep the dates honest. A confirmation that arrives the day after you paid is still a confirmation, but it is a different fact from one that arrived before you signed. Write the actual date next to each entry. If a roofer says the schedule is coming, note the day you asked and the day it came. A dated record is more useful than a memory of how responsive someone seemed on the phone, and it holds up better when two bids are close.

Put the tally next to the bids themselves, not in a separate folder. The point is to read the paper trail at the same moment you read the price, so the confirmation count can change how you weigh a lower number.

Why St. Louis timing makes the schedule matter

Local roofing calendars are uneven. Spring brings hail-season calls, and the crews that are busiest in April and May often book their next open days in weeks rather than days. Late fall brings a rush before the first hard freeze. Winter brings freeze-thaw cycles that can stall a tear-off when the deck is slick or the shingles will not seal. A written schedule that names a window, and says what happens if weather pushes the window back, gives you something concrete to hold when the calendar shifts.

Ask each roofer how a weather delay is recorded. Some will write a revised date and send it the same day. Others will simply show up later than promised. If the forecast says rain for three days running, the difference between a written revision and a verbal apology is the difference between a plan and a hope.

Permits add another layer. Many St. Louis County jurisdictions and the city itself require inspections at set points in the job. If the permit desk schedules an inspection for a particular day, the roofer's written schedule should reflect that, and the change record should note any move. A roofer who cannot say which inspection is booked, or who will meet the inspector, has not finished the paperwork that a permitted job needs.

What a thin count tells you

A roofer who sends a short packet is not automatically a poor choice. Some small crews work from a single signed proposal and a text the night before roof day, and they may do good work. The issue is what you are left holding if something moves. If the start slips by a week, a single proposal with no written window gives you nothing to point to. If the crew leaves a stripped section open overnight, a scope that never mentioned overnight covering gives you no line to enforce.

The opposite pattern deserves a look too. A roofer who sends a heavy stack of paperwork can still leave out the thing you care about. Read the packet against your own list. Does the scope name the underlayment and the flashing? Does it say who hauls away the old shingles and the nail strips? Does it state what the crew does when they find soft decking? A long document with the wrong content is no better than a short one, and sometimes it is harder to read.

How the count lines up with price

The written trail belongs next to the price, not after it. Two bids can differ by a meaningful amount and still produce very different final bills, because one roofer confirms each change as it happens and the other folds changes into the final invoice. A roofer who documents each change in writing before the work is done gives you a chance to say no while the decision is still cheap. That is the cost comparison many homeowners never make, because the number that changes the bill is not on the first page.

Ask each roofer to show a sample change record from a recent job, with the names and addresses removed. You are not asking for customer details. You are asking what the form looks like, who signs it, whether the homeowner's signature is required, and how long it takes to come back once the crew has sent it. A roofer who can answer those four points without hesitation has a process. A roofer who says the change record is handled in a conversation has a memory, and memories are hard to hold a roofer to.

Questions to ask before you count

• What written items do you send before I sign, and what do you send after?
• Who on your side signs each change order, and does the homeowner sign too?
• How many days after signature does the written schedule arrive?
• If weather or an inspection moves the start, which document gets updated, and who sends it?
• Can I see a sample change record from a finished job, with names removed?

Write each answer in the cell it belongs to. If a roofer answers in person and never sends the document, log that too. The count is only as good as the record of what actually arrived, and a promise that never shows up on paper does not count at all.

Keep the file after the crew leaves

The count does not end at signature. Save every written item in one folder, with the date each one arrived. When the crew finishes, compare the final invoice against the change record, line by line. If a change appears on the invoice that never came to you in writing, raise it before you pay. The confirmations you counted at the start are the same ones you will need at the end, and a roofer who sent them promptly has made that check easy.

Keys Roofing can be reached at (314) 220-2333. Ask for the written scope and schedule before you commit, and set them beside the rest of your bids. If the paper is not in your hands yet, the job has not really been agreed to, whatever was said on the phone.