The First Quote You Hear Sets the Anchor, So Log the Call Order

Most homeowners in St. Louis who collect roof bids do it over a few weeks, and the calls rarely arrive in a tidy order. A neighbor gives you a name, a yard sign goes up two blocks over, and a third roofer answers a web form on a Sunday night. By the time the paper comes in, one figure has usually been in your head longer than the others. That first number becomes an anchor. Every later total gets measured against it, whether or not it deserves to be.

Roofer comparison: write down the order you called

Before you open a single proposal, write the company names in the order you first spoke with each one. Add the date, the time of day, and whether the person who answered was the estimator, a salesperson, or an office line. Note who called back, who sent a text instead of speaking, and who never returned the call at all. This is a small record, but it changes how you read the totals that follow.

A roofer you reached on a weekday afternoon, who gave you a rough range by phone, sits differently in your head than one who only sent a written number after walking the roof. Neither is wrong by default. You simply need to know which numbers were spoken first and which were written with the roof in front of the estimator. The spoken figure was often given before anyone measured the slopes, counted the penetrations, or looked at the decking.

What it costs: separate the spoken range from the written bid

A phone range is useful for deciding whether to schedule a visit. It is not a bid. When a roofer says the job will land somewhere between two numbers, ask what that range assumes. The usual assumptions are the square count, the number of layers, whether the old roof comes off or stays, and what the ridge and valleys will need. If the range does not state those assumptions, write that down as an open item instead of treating the range as a price.

Timing matters in this part of Missouri too. A figure given in January for a spring start may reflect the labor and material costs the roofer expected at that moment, and a figure given during a hail season may reflect a calendar that has since filled. The roofer may still honor the number, or may revise it. Either outcome is information, and your log is where you keep it. Record the date each price was stated and whether the roofer said it would hold.

Once the written bids are in, lay them out next to your log. You are looking for two things. The first is whether the written totals moved away from the spoken anchor, and if so, which line items explain the movement. The second is whether any roofer's written total landed close to the first number you heard, even though that roofer never saw the roof before speaking. A close match is not proof of accuracy. It is a reason to check that the written scope includes the same lines the phone figure was built on.

• Spoken range: what did it assume about squares, layers, and tear-off?
• Written bid: which lines were added or removed after the site visit?
• Difference: is it a scope change, a material change, or a sum that was simply wrong?

What to ask: put the same questions to each roofer in the same order

The anchor problem gets worse when each roofer hears a different set of questions. One company may be asked about gutters and another about flashing, and the answers then cannot be placed side by side. Choose a short list before the first call and read it in the same order every time. The list does not need to be long. Five or six questions, asked identically, will do more for your comparison than twenty questions that drift from call to call.

1. What number did you give me on the first call, and what did it assume?
2. Did your written bid change that number, and which lines moved?
3. How many squares did you measure, and how did you measure them?
4. How many layers does your bid assume are on the roof now?
5. What does your written bid leave out that another roofer might include?
6. How long will this written price stay valid?

Write each answer under the question it answers, in the same column for every roofer. If a roofer skips a question, leave the cell blank and note that it was skipped. A blank cell is an answer too, and it often tells you more than a confident sentence would. Keep the log in one place, and do not let a roofer's written reply replace the original spoken answer in your notes. Both belong in the record, dated.

If you want to test the logic against the contractor behind this site, Keys Roofing can be reached at (314) 220-2333. Ask the same six questions, note the order in which you called, and compare the written scope against the number you heard first. The point of the log is not to make the first roofer look wrong or the last one look right. It is to keep the first number from deciding the comparison before you have read the paper.