Visit Each Roofer's Office Before You Sign

A roofing office is usually a desk, a phone line and a file cabinet, and that is fine. What matters is whether the office can produce the paper a homeowner will need six weeks from now, when the crew is on the roof and a question comes up about the shingle order, the permit card or the closeout packet. An office visit, even a short one, tests that before you hand over a deposit.

Why an office visit adds something a phone call does not

A phone call tells you how the roofer sounds. A visit tells you what the roofer keeps. Ask to come by the office, or to meet at a supply yard or a job trailer if the company has no storefront. Some roofers run from a home office with no public counter, and that alone is not a problem. The question is whether someone can open a folder for you while you sit across from them.

Plan the visit for a weekday morning, when the phones and the paperwork are both in use. Write down the three things you want to see before you go, so the visit stays on the record you are building and does not turn into a sales pitch. Bring your current roof photos, your lot survey if you have one, and the name of the municipality where the house sits. Ask whether the bid already includes the permit fee, because that depends on the desk where the permit is pulled, and the answer should be in writing either way.

What to look at while you are there

Start with the signed contracts folder. You are not asking to read other customers' files, and you should not. You are asking how the contracts are stored: whether they are numbered, whether a copy goes to the customer on signing, and whether the office can find an old one by address. A company that cannot find its own paperwork in an afternoon will not find yours in March.

Next, look at the permit board or the job calendar. Many St. Louis County jobs need a permit from the municipal desk where the house sits, and the card or the job number has to be visible to the inspector. Ask who books the inspections and where the permit card will hang on your house. The answer belongs in the file, not in the memory of whoever happens to be in the office that day.

Then ask to see a sample shingle board or a sample bundle set, if the company keeps one. Keys installs Atlas and Malarkey shingles only, so a Keys sample board will show those products. Look at the labels, the colors and the wrapper information. A roofer who can name the line, the color and the bundle code without checking a screen has handled the product before, and that matters more than a brochure.

What the people in the room should be able to tell you

Ask who would run your job day to day. Office visits are the easiest place to learn whether the person who signs the bid is the person who stands on the roof. Ask for a name and a phone number for the crew lead, and ask what that person's role is on the day of the tear-off. If the answer is that the owner handles everything, write that down, because it tells you who will answer for mistakes.

Ask who answers the office phone when the crew is out, and whether the same person can pull up your file. This is the same question you would ask on a call, but in person you can watch the answer happen. Note whether the person looks it up or says they will call back, and how long the wait is. A callback that never comes is a fact about the company, and you will want it in your notes.

Things a visit cannot settle

An office visit does not tell you the quality of the roof. It does not tell you how the crew handles a rainy morning or what happens if the shingle lot runs short. Those answers come from the written scope, the schedule and the references. A tidy office is not evidence of good roofing, and a cluttered one is not evidence of bad roofing. Keep the visit to what it can show: how records are kept, who is accountable, and how fast the company can produce a document.

St. Louis weather makes the filing question more pressing than it looks. A freeze and thaw cycle that opens a flashing seam in February will bring the homeowner back to the office, and the file that answers the question has to be findable by someone other than the person who wrote it. Ask whether the office keeps job files by address or only by customer name, because a storm call often starts with a house number, not a surname.

If you are comparing two or three roofers, use the same three questions at each stop. The same questions, asked in the same order, make the answers comparable. Write the time you arrived, the name of the person who helped you, and the answer to each question on a single notes page. Keep that page with your written bids so the two sources can be read side by side.

What to take home

Before you leave, ask for a copy of the company's standard written scope and a blank contract, and ask how long the company keeps job files after the final check. Those are documents you should be able to hold in your hand. If a roofer says the paperwork is available by email only, ask for the email address on the spot and ask when it will arrive. A date on a sticky note is not a delivery promise.

To set up a visit to Keys Roofing, call (314) 220-2333. When you call, ask what the office can pull up for your address before you come in, and bring the written bids you already have. Compare what you saw in the office with what the paper says, and keep both.