How to compare roofing estimates: line by line, not bottom line.

Shingles cost about the same for every roofer in town; the supplier does not care whose truck picks them up. Labor rates are close. So when three estimates for the same roof land $6,000 apart, the difference is almost never efficiency. It is scope: what one roofer counted that another left out, what one replaces that another reuses, and what one will charge you for on the day when the other already priced it.

Comparing bottom lines rewards the roofer who left the most out. Comparing line items rewards the roofer who told you the truth. This guide is the line-item method, the way we would use it if we were the homeowner. Our own cost guide explains why the number is the number; this one explains how to hold two numbers against each other.

Before you look at a single price, line the estimates up on five questions. If the answers differ, you are not comparing the same job.

1. How big is the roof? In squares (one square is 100 square feet) and pitch. Two estimates for the same house should agree within a square. If one is a lot smaller, someone guessed from the street.
2. What comes off? One layer or two; a full tear-off or a layover on top of the old shingles.
3. What goes on? The shingle by brand, line and color; the underlayment by type; where the ice and water shield goes; the starter, hip and ridge products by name.
4. What is replaced and what is reused? Flashings, pipe flashings, vents, drip edge. "Reuse where possible" is a price cut you will pay for later.
5. What happens if the deck is bad? A per-sheet price for replacing rotten decking, written down now, not discovered on build day.

Once the scopes match, the prices mean something. Until then the cheapest estimate is just the one that stopped writing first.

Use this as a checklist. Tick what each estimate names; a blank is a question, and a pattern of blanks is an answer.

Some omissions are innocent shorthand. These five are the usual sources of the "cheaper" estimate, and each one costs you either on build day or two winters later.

• Decking. Nobody knows what is under the shingles until they are off. An estimate with no per-sheet price is an estimate with a blank check attached.
• Flashing. New step and counter flashing set into the masonry is skilled, slow work. Reusing the old flashing and running a bead of caulk is fast and looks the same from the street for about eighteen months.
• Ventilation. Intake at the soffits and exhaust at the ridge, sized to the attic, is on every honest quote because an attic that cannot breathe ages the new roof like the old one, and because most manufacturer warranties require it. Leaving it off saves a few hundred dollars and costs years.
• Ice and water shield. The self-sealing membrane belongs where roofs actually leak: valleys, around every pipe, at wall and chimney transitions, along the eaves. "As required" often means "not".
• Six nails. The wind rating on the shingle box assumes six nails per shingle. Four saves time. The north wind finds out which one you got.

An estimate is a proposal. Four other pieces of paper tell you whether the company behind it can keep it.

1. Two insurance certificates. General liability, which covers damage to your property, and workers' compensation, which covers the person on your roof. In Texas the second is optional for the employer and essential for you; ask for it with your name as certificate holder, and check the dates. The workers' comp guide explains why.
2. The warranty document itself, not a sentence about it: the non-prorated years, what voids it, and how transfer works. The warranty guide shows what "50-year warranty" usually means.
3. A payment schedule. A modest amount at signing or at material delivery, the balance on completion, is normal. A large deposit before any material arrives is not.
4. The deductible notice, if insurance is paying. Texas law requires any contract of $1,000 or more paid from a claim to state that you must pay your deductible. An estimate that says the opposite is telling you the company breaks the law.

1. "Where exactly does the ice and water shield go?" The answer should be a list of places, not a shrug.
2. "How many nails per shingle, and what kind?" Six, ring-shank, in the nail line. Anything else is a shortcut.
3. "What happens if you find rotten decking?" A per-sheet price, already on the estimate.
4. "Who inspects the finished roof, against what checklist, and do I get the photos?" The crew should not grade its own homework. We run a 26-point QualCheck with photographs and you get the set.
5. "If this roof leaks at a flashing in year six, who fixes it, who pays, and which document says so?" One breath, and a page handed over.

• "We'll cover your deductible." A Class B misdemeanor in Texas since 2019, and an estimate that has been inflated or a roof that has been cut to pay for it. Walk away.
• A signature needed today. Roofs do not expire overnight. Pressure is the tell.
• No local office, no local reviews, an out-of-state plate. The warranty is a promise to be here; check that they have been.
• A layover with no deck inspection. New shingles over an uninspected deck is a rotten roof with a nice hat.
• "Lifetime warranty" with no document. Ask for the page. If there is no page, there is no warranty.
• The estimate arrives before anyone has been on the roof or in the attic. A number from the driveway is a guess with a logo.

The fastest way to compare estimates is to have a roofer who was not paid to write one read them with you. Bring the other estimates to a free Roof Grade. We inspect the roof (attic first, every slope, 75 to 150 photographs), then go through their scope line by line: what is real, what is padding, what is missing, in writing. If their price is fair, we say so, and you have lost nothing but an hour.