Compare STL Roofers · Two warranties
The two warranties, and who owes them
One comes from the company that made the shingle. One comes from the company that nailed it down. They cover different failures, last different lengths of time, and are worth very different amounts in the first decade.
If you take one thing from this site into a sales conversation, take this: when a roofer says the word warranty, ask which one. Almost every confusion in this part of the trade comes from a single document being described as if it were both.
The manufacturer warranty
Issued by the company that made the shingle. It covers manufacturing defects in the product. It does not cover the roof leaking because it was installed wrong, and it does not cover storm damage. Registration is sometimes required and is often forgotten.
The workmanship warranty
Issued by the roofing company. It covers installation: fasteners, flashing, alignment, penetrations, the things that actually leak. It lasts as long as the company does. It is the one that matters in the first decade of a roof's life.
Why the second one is worth more than the first
Modern asphalt shingles very rarely fail as a product within the first ten years. What goes wrong in that window is almost always installation: a nail driven high so it misses the shingle below, a valley cut tight, a pipe collar that was reused, a chimney where the counter flashing was surface sealed rather than let into the mortar. None of that is a defect in the shingle, so none of it is a manufacturer problem. It is a workmanship problem, and the workmanship warranty is the document that decides who pays.
This is why the length of the manufacturer warranty is a weak comparison variable and why the roofing industry leans on it so heavily in advertising. A very long product warranty on a well made shingle is close to free for the manufacturer to offer. A workmanship promise costs the roofer real money, which is why they are much shorter and much more carefully written.
Two quotes can both say the words full warranty and mean entirely different things. One may mean a written workmanship warranty of several years, transferable, with a defined response time. The other may mean a verbal assurance that they will come back if something goes wrong. Only one of those survives the salesperson leaving the company. Ask for the document itself and read the exclusions, which are where the meaning lives.
What to read in a workmanship warranty
- Length, in writing. Terms in this trade vary widely and the number by itself is not the point. A short warranty you can read beats a long one you have never seen.
- What it covers. Leaks caused by installation, usually. Does it cover the flashing? The ventilation? Work on the gutters?
- What voids it. Satellite dish installers, solar mounts, pressure washing, another contractor working on the roof, or non-payment of the final invoice.
- Transferability. If you sell the house, does the warranty move to the buyer, and is there a fee or a notice window?
- The response obligation. Does the company commit to a timeframe for coming out, or only to coming out eventually?
- Whether it is prorated. A prorated promise is worth progressively less every year, which is easy to miss.
The enhanced or system warranty
Manufacturers offer upgraded warranties on installations where the whole system comes from that manufacturer and where the installing company has been certified by them. These are real products and they can be worth having, because some of them fold a period of workmanship coverage into a promise backed by the manufacturer rather than by the roofer. That is the useful part: a workmanship promise that survives the roofing company closing.
Two cautions. First, they are only available through installers the manufacturer has approved, so this is not something a homeowner can add later. Second, they usually require the full system, meaning the underlayment, starter, ridge cap and ventilation all come from the same maker, which raises the material cost. If one of your quotes includes an enhanced warranty and the other does not, that is a scope difference and belongs on the sheet, not in the margin.
Keys Roofing installs Atlas and Malarkey shingles and is licensed and insured. This site does not publish a warranty term for Keys, because a warranty is a document rather than a slogan and it should reach you as a document. Ask for it on the call and read it before you sign anything, exactly as this page has been telling you to do with everybody else.
A practical test
Ask each company to email you the workmanship warranty as a file, today, before any decision. It costs them nothing. What comes back is diagnostic. A specific document with defined exclusions and a transfer clause is a company that has thought about being called in year four. A one paragraph assurance in the body of an email is a company that has not, and an unanswered request is its own result.
Then read what lifetime actually means, because that word does more work in roofing advertising than any other and it does not mean what most homeowners assume.
If you want a written scope that lines up against the two you already have, that is a phone call. The measurement, the photographs and the written scope are yours to keep whether or not you hire anybody.
Ask both companies which promise is theirs
One warranty comes from the shingle manufacturer and one comes from the contractor, and only one of the two still exists if the contractor closes the doors.
Keys states the workmanship promise in the written scope rather than describing it out loud in a driveway. Ask to read it before you sign anything, here or anywhere else.
Straight through to the Keys Roofing office. If you would rather talk it through than type it out, this is the line.
Ask for the third scope
Roof replacement. St. Louis metro only.
This goes to Keys Roofing and nowhere else. No company named anywhere on this site receives it, and none of them pay to be mentioned.