First: How Did They Measure It?
Ask each contractor what roof area they are pricing and how they arrived at it. This single question separates the quotes faster than anything else.
Roof area is not house footprint. Multiply footprint by roughly 1.06 for a shallow pitch, 1.25 for a moderate walkable pitch, 1.45 for a steep one — and overhangs add more. A quote built from your floor area is low by that factor before anything else is considered.
And check the units. Roofers quote in squares; one square is 100 square feet. $1,400 per square is $14 per square foot. If a quote and an online figure look wildly apart, confirm which unit each is using before drawing conclusions.
Two quotes that agree on the area and differ on price are comparable. Two that disagree on the area are not — and one of them is wrong.
Eight Lines a Complete Quote Contains
| Line | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Measured roof area, and how | Everything else scales from it. Footprint-based numbers read low by 6–45%. |
| Panel material, gauge and profile | “Standing seam” spans Galvalume at $12 and aluminium at $20. Gauge and pan width are real differences, not details. |
| Finish system | Coating systems differ meaningfully in how they hold colour. Ask which, and what the finish warranty covers separately from the panel. |
| Underlayment and ice-and-water | High-temperature synthetic under metal; membrane at eaves and valleys. In this climate that membrane is what keeps an ice dam off your ceiling. |
| Tear-off and disposal | Its own line. Folded invisibly into a per-square-foot rate, it makes quotes impossible to compare. |
| Deck repair rate | Agreed before tear-off. On an older roof something is usually found, and mid-job is the worst moment to negotiate a rate. |
| Snow retention, with locations | Where, and why there. The answer should reference what is actually beneath your eaves. |
| Warranty, split three ways | Material, finish, and workmanship are three different warranties with three different durations. A single headline number tells you nothing. |
Four Things That Should Make You Ask More
A price given without anyone on site
Aerial measurement software is genuinely good and a reasonable starting point. What it cannot see is the deck, the ventilation, the flashing details, the access, or what is beneath the eaves. A number produced without any of that is a starting point, not a quote.
“This price is good today only”
Nothing about a roof changes by Thursday. This is a sales instrument and it is the clearest signal available that you are in a sales process rather than a trade conversation. On a five-figure decision, take the week.
“It will fix your ice dams”
It will reduce them. The cause is heat escaping into the roof assembly and no roofing material addresses that. Anyone who says yes to this without asking about your attic has told you something useful about themselves. The mechanism, explained.
No mention of the deck
Every re-roof exposes the deck and every older deck has something. A quote silent on what happens then is a quote with an open-ended item in it, and the conversation will happen at the worst possible moment.
The Order That Saves Money
Work out whether you have a roofing problem
If ice dams brought you here, run the check first. A meaningful share of people should be calling an insulation contractor, and finding that out before commissioning a roof is worth five figures.
Decide the material on your holding period
Not on the brochure. The fifty-year comparison runs it on your roof and shows its assumptions. Under five years, asphalt is usually the rational answer.
Then get two or three quotes on the same specification
Same material, same gauge, same underlayment, same scope. Now the numbers mean something, because everyone is pricing the same job.
Book for the season, not the week
Installs run roughly April to November here. A roof commissioned in July gets a considered schedule; one commissioned in October gets whatever is left. If your roof will last one more winter, using that winter to plan is worth real money.