When two quotes are not the same roof

There is a moment in most roof buying that goes like this. Two numbers, a gap of several thousand dollars, and a homeowner trying to work out what the expensive company is doing that the cheap one is not. It is the wrong question, or at least it is the second question. The first is whether the two documents are measuring, including and excluding the same things. Until that is settled the gap is not information.

The square count

Roofing is sold by the square, which is one hundred square feet of roof surface. Two companies measuring the same house will usually land within a square or so of each other, but not always, and the reasons are legitimate. One may have measured from aerial imagery and one from a ladder. One may include the detached garage and the porch roof and one may not. One may be quoting the whole house and one may be quoting the two slopes that failed.

Ask both for the square count in writing. If they differ by more than about one square on a normal house, somebody is measuring a different building, and that alone can account for most of a price gap.

Pitch, height and access

A roof steep enough to need staging, harnesses and slower movement costs more to install than a walkable one, and that is not padding. Neither is a third storey, a courtyard that a dumpster cannot reach, or a slope that overhangs a neighbour's fence. If one company priced for staging and one did not, they were pricing different amounts of labour on the same square footage. This is one of the more common invisible differences in older St. Louis neighbourhoods, where the housing stock includes plenty of steep slopes and tight lot lines.

Layers, and what is under them

A tear-off of one layer and a tear-off of three layers are different jobs in labour and in disposal weight. Many quotes assume one layer and quietly reserve the right to charge for more. That is not unreasonable, but you want it named, because it turns into a real number on the day. Ask what the quote assumes and what the price is if the assumption is wrong.

Exclusions, which are where the money hides

Read the bottom of the page. Exclusions and assumptions are where a quote tells you what it is not doing, and they are usually set in the smallest type on the document. Common ones worth finding: decking replacement priced separately, chimney masonry work excluded, gutter replacement excluded, satellite dish removal and reinstallation excluded, permit fees excluded, interior repairs excluded.

None of those exclusions are wrong. A roofer who excludes chimney masonry is being honest, because tuckpointing is a different trade. The problem is that a quote with a long exclusion list and a quote with none can look like a price difference when they are actually a disclosure difference.

The gutters question

Gutters get damaged during tear-off more often than anyone admits, and they are frequently the thing that decides whether a roof looks finished. Some quotes include new gutters, some include reattaching the existing ones, some say nothing. On a normal house this line alone can be worth a couple of thousand dollars, which is often most of the gap people are agonising over.

What to do about it

Write a one page scope of your own using the ten lines, send the same page to every company, and ask each to price that. It converts three incompatible documents into three prices for one job, which is the only situation in which the cheapest number is actually meaningful. It takes an evening and it is the highest leverage thing a homeowner can do in this process.

And when the quotes do finally line up, expect a residual difference. Companies genuinely do cost different amounts to run. That difference has legitimate sources and it is worth understanding rather than assuming it is margin.