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Owner-led residential roofing in West Austin
The Honest Roofer

How to read a roofing proposal when the bids are thousands apart

Two honest bids on the same roof can differ by thousands. The gap is in tear-off, decking, flashing, warranties and insurance. Here is how to pull each proposal apart and compare the same job.

Two proposals for the same roof can be thousands of dollars apart and both be written in good faith. The gap is almost never in the shingles or the panels, because everyone is buying those from the same handful of manufacturers. It is in what comes off, what goes back on underneath, which pieces of metal are replaced instead of bent back and reused, who carries insurance on the people walking your roof, and what happens on the second morning when the crew finds rotten decking. A proposal that says “replace roof” and gives a number has told you none of that, which means there is nothing in it to compare. The work in front of you is to turn each bid into the same list of line items. Once you can do that, the price differences usually explain themselves.

Here is what to look for, roughly in the order the work happens.

Start by checking both bids describe the same roof

Roofing is measured in squares. One square is one hundred square feet of roof surface, not floor area, so a steep roof covers far more square footage than the house footprint suggests.

Ask each bidder for their square count, the pitch, and the number of stories they priced. If the counts are close, good. If one is meaningfully smaller, somebody measured off a satellite image and somebody measured the roof, and you want to know which. Steep pitch, multiple stories, tight access on a hillside lot and a complicated roof form with many valleys and penetrations all raise labour legitimately. Those are real cost differences, not padding, and a bidder should be able to point at them on your roof.

Tear-off or layover, and how many layers

A layover means new shingles installed over the existing ones. It is cheaper, and on a home worth protecting it is usually a poor trade. It hides the decking, so nobody can see the condition of the wood the whole roof depends on. It adds weight. It traps heat, which shortens the life of the new shingles. It often puts the manufacturer’s coverage out of reach. And it makes the next tear-off more expensive, because two layers have to come off instead of one.

If the bid is a tear-off, it should say tear off to the deck, and it should say how many layers are being removed and whether that number is included in the price. Older Hill Country homes surprisingly often have more than one.

The decking, and the rate that belongs in the proposal already

The decking is the one part of the job nobody can honestly price in advance, because it is under the roof. That is exactly why it should be addressed in advance.

A complete proposal says how the deck will be inspected once it is exposed, states the price per sheet of plywood or per board of decking that has to be replaced, and says how many sheets, if any, are included. Named up front, it becomes a known variable and you can budget for it. Left out, it becomes a negotiation held on your driveway while your house is open to the sky, which is the worst possible moment to be discussing money.

Ask also about re-nailing the deck. Some jurisdictions require the existing decking to be refastened to current standards on a full replacement, and it is inexpensive when the roof is already off.

What goes on before the roof goes on

This is the section that separates a specification from a sales sheet, and where the largest quiet price differences live.

Underlayment. Ask which product, not just “underlayment.” Synthetic underlayments behave differently from felt in Texas heat and under foot traffic. On tile and slate this matters more than anything else in the bid, because on those roofs the underlayment is the waterproofing layer. The tile is the wear surface and the shade. The membrane underneath is what actually keeps water out, and it is what fails first.

Self-adhered membrane, often sold as ice and water shield. In the Hill Country the freeze it was named for is not the reason to use it. Wind-driven rain forced up into valleys, around chimneys and pipes, at eaves, and across low-slope transitions is the reason. So the question is not whether they carry it, it is where they are putting it and how far up.

Drip edge at the eaves and the rakes, new rather than reused. It is a small, cheap piece of metal that controls where water leaves the roof, and leaving it off is a common way to shave a bid.

A real starter course along the eaves and rakes, meaning purpose-made starter, not field shingles cut up on site. The starter carries the sealant strip that holds the first row down in wind.

Ridge and hip treatment. Which cap product, and whether the ridge is vented.

Fasteners. Nail type, length and placement are manufacturer requirements, and the nail line is one of the easiest things to get wrong quickly. High nailing, where fasteners land above the required zone, is invisible from the ground the day it is finished and shows up as blow-offs in the first serious wind.

If your roof is metal, tile or slate, the specification has to go further still. “Standing-seam metal” is not a spec. The gauge, the panel width, the seam type, whether panels are snap-lock or mechanically seamed, the clip system, and the finish all belong in writing, because they change both the price and the life of the roof considerably. Two metal bids can be describing genuinely different products. The differences between the materials themselves are worth understanding before you try to compare bids on them.

Flashing is where the cheap bid usually hides

Flashing is the metal that handles every place the roof meets something else. Walls, chimneys, valleys, skylights, pipes, dormers. It is where nearly all roof leaks actually begin, and it is almost never where a homeowner looks in a proposal.

Step flashing runs up a wall behind the siding, one piece per shingle course. Replacing it properly means getting behind the wall finish, which takes time. Bending the old pieces back into place, bedding them in sealant and shingling over them takes almost none. Both look identical from the street on the day the job finishes. One of them is a leak on a delay.

The same applies to chimney counterflashing, which should be let into a mortar joint rather than smeared onto the brick face with caulk, to valley metal, and to pipe boots, where the rubber collar on the common type hardens and splits in Texas sun long before the roof around it wears out.

So ask the direct question of every bidder: which flashings are new, and which are being reused. Then ask them to write the answer down. It is one line in the proposal and it may be the single largest real difference between your bids.

Ventilation

Attic ventilation works as a system of intake low and exhaust high. Adding ridge vent without opening up soffit intake accomplishes very little, and mixing ridge vent with box vents or turbines can let the roof pull air from itself rather than from outside.

A proposal that includes specific ventilation work is usually one where somebody actually put their head in the attic. That is worth noticing on its own.

Two warranties, and they are not the same thing

Almost every roofing bid mentions a warranty. Almost every roofing bid means two different ones, and homeowners routinely hear them as a single promise.

The manufacturer’s material warranty covers the product. It is usually prorated after an early period, it typically does not cover the installation at all, and the stronger versions generally require both a certified installer and the manufacturer’s own components throughout the assembly, not just their shingles. Transferability rules vary.

The workmanship warranty comes from the contractor and covers the installation, which is where most failures come from. It is worth exactly as much as the company’s willingness and ability to answer the phone in several years’ time.

“Lifetime warranty” on its own tells you nothing until you ask which of the two it refers to, what it excludes, what voids it, whether it survives a sale of the house, and whether it is written in the contract or only said out loud. Ask for both documents before you sign anything.

Who is actually going to be on your roof

Some roofing companies employ their crews. Some use subcontracted crews they have worked with for years. Neither arrangement is automatically better, and some of the best installers in this area are long-standing sub crews. What matters is that you know which it is and who is accountable.

Worth asking: who is the foreman on my house, will that person be here all day, how many other roofs is this crew running that week, does the person who sold me this job ever come back, and who do I call at four in the afternoon when something needs a decision.

Insurance, and why the certificate should come from the insurer

Two coverages matter. General liability covers damage to your property. Workers’ compensation covers injury to the people on your roof.

Here is the part specific to Texas, and most homeowners do not know it: Texas does not require most private employers to carry workers’ compensation. A roofing crew here can be working entirely without it, legally. If someone is injured on your house and there is no coverage behind them, that exposure has a way of finding its way to your homeowner’s policy and to you.

Ask for a certificate of insurance sent to you directly by the agency or carrier, naming you as certificate holder, rather than a PDF forwarded by the contractor. A forwarded copy can be expired or edited. A certificate issued to you means you also get told if the policy lapses mid-project.

Texas does not license roofing contractors

There is no state licence for roofing contractors in Texas. When a roofing advertisement here says “licensed and insured,” the first word is doing no work at all, unlike in a trade such as electrical or plumbing.

That puts the whole burden of vetting on you. What actually substitutes for it: how long the company has traded under its current legal name, manufacturer certifications, which are real and require documented installer training, voluntary industry credentials, local addresses that match on the contract and the truck, and references on streets you can drive down and look at. Some cities require contractors to register before issuing a permit, but registration is a filing, not a test of competence.

While you are there, settle permits. Find out whether your jurisdiction requires a permit for a reroof and who is pulling it. A contractor who asks the homeowner to pull the permit is moving liability onto the homeowner, and it is fair to ask why.

The money, and the order it moves in

You should not need to invent any of this. It should be written in the proposal.

The deposit. A deposit that covers material ordered specifically for your house is ordinary and reasonable, particularly for metal, tile or slate with real lead times. A deposit that funds most of the job before a truck has arrived is a different thing. Ask what the deposit buys and when the material will be delivered to your property.

Progress payments should attach to milestones such as material delivery, tear-off complete, installation complete, and final payment after your own walkthrough. Payments attached to calendar dates rather than completed work put the risk on the wrong side.

Change orders in writing, priced, and signed before the extra work proceeds. Rotten decking, a chimney in worse shape than it looked, and a third layer nobody expected are the three that come up most.

Lien waivers. In Texas an unpaid subcontractor or material supplier can file against your property even when you have paid the roofing company in full. The protection is a conditional waiver with each progress payment and an unconditional waiver at final payment, from the contractor and from any supplier or sub involved. Homestead property has stricter contract requirements than most homeowners expect, including that the contract be in writing and signed before work begins. If a bidder goes blank at the phrase “lien waiver,” that is information.

If the work is going through an insurance claim, your deductible is yours to pay and an offer to absorb or discount it is a problem rather than a discount. What a legitimate claim inspection looks like is a subject of its own.

The part that happens on the ground

Roofing is demolition before it is construction, and a house takes a beating during it. A good proposal covers the ground as well as the roof: where the dumpster or trailer sits and what protects the driveway under it, plywood and tarps on walls, windows, patios and beds, protection for landscaping and any air conditioning units below the eaves, gutters cleared and reattached, and detach and reset for satellite dishes or solar.

Then cleanup. Ask specifically how many magnet sweeps and over what ground, because nails travel further than people expect, into the lawn, the beds, the street and the neighbour’s drive. Ask who is responsible if the limestone drive is damaged.

One more item that catches West Austin homeowners regularly: if your neighbourhood has an architectural committee, find out who prepares and submits the application, and whose schedule absorbs the wait for approval.

The questions worth asking every bidder

Short list, and you can ask them by phone.

If two roofers answer all of that and their prices are still far apart, you now have a real comparison and you can decide what the difference is buying.

The most expensive bid is not automatically the right one

It is worth saying plainly, because the opposite advice usually comes from whoever wrote the highest bid. A price can be high for reasons that never reach your roof: heavy overhead, commission-based sales, a subcontracted crew with margin stacked on top of it, or a specification heavier than your house actually needs. A price can also be low because a company is small, carries little overhead, employs no salespeople, and the owner is on the roof.

The bid you want is the one with a complete, specific, written scope from people who answer their phone and will still exist when something needs looking at. That is often the middle bid. Sometimes, once every line is on the table, it is the cheapest one, and the reason it looked too good was that it was simply well run.

There is also a version of this where the honest answer is that you do not need a new roof at all this year, and the roofer who tells you so has done you more good than the one who did not.

The Honest Roofer works across West Austin, West Lake Hills, Lakeway, Bee Cave, Spicewood and Horseshoe Bay. Our process is built so the scope is readable before there is a price attached to it, which is the whole reason for the name. If you have two or three proposals on the table and want help reading them, bring them to the conversation. And ask us every question on the list above, then hold the answers to the same standard you hold everyone else’s.