What's the difference between a roof inspection and a roof estimate?

What a roof inspection checks that a roof estimate cannot

A roof inspection is the fact-finding visit. It answers what is actually happening on your roof, how it holds up against current building code, and how well the roof was designed. The roof estimate comes after, and it prices only what the inspection found.

A thorough roof inspection looks at:

• Layers: how many roofs are stacked on the house. Code allows two at most, and how many layers Utah allows has its own answer.
• The deck: the condition of the wood under the shingles.
• Leaks: where water is getting in, if it is.
• Flashing: the metal where walls, chimneys and pipes meet the roof.
• Ventilation: whether the attic meets code. The residential code asks for about 1 square foot of vent area for every 150 square feet of attic. What ventilation has to do with your roof has its own answer.
• Wear: whether the shingles are aging on schedule, and if not, why.

The wear check can change which roof you buy. Sometimes shingles wear out early because of the sun, nearby trees or the way the house faces. Then the estimate can suggest a material that will last longer on your house.

Why a roof estimate should always come after the inspection

A roof estimate should come after the inspection because the hidden items are where the price moves. What a thorough inspection turns up can change an estimate by a few thousand dollars. It is one reason why roofing quotes land thousands of dollars apart.

Two examples of hidden costs

• A side wall that was never flashed right. The rock on that wall has to come off, the wall gets new flashing, and the rock goes back on. On a bigger house, that alone runs into the thousands.
• An attic that cannot breathe. Nobody can tell whether the ventilation works without getting into the attic. Fixing it belongs in the price from the start.

The Better Business Bureau's advice for hiring a roofer points the same way. A detailed proposal, broken into separate line items, is a good sign the contractor prepared an accurate estimate. Flashing work and ventilation work are both on its list of what a proposal should cover.

What happens when a roofer prices a roof without inspecting it

A roofing price given without an inspection usually ends one of three ways once the work starts.

1. A change order. The crew finds the problem, and the price goes up by thousands. This is the best of the three, because the work still gets done right.
2. Free work. The company eats the cost. A company that works for free will not stay in business long enough to honor your warranty.
3. Skipped steps. The problem gets covered up. We see this one most. Crews paid by the job lose money while they wait for the right materials, so they move on. That is how roofs end up installed over rotted wood.

You can head off all three before anyone starts. Get the inspection first. Master Roofing backs its inspections with the Expert Estimation Guarantee. If our estimator misses something they should have seen, you do not pay for the change order.

What to ask a roofer before you trust their roof estimate

Before you trust a roof estimate, ask what the roofer checked and what they found. A roofer who really inspected can answer every question below in plain words.

Ask this	A good answer sounds like
Did you go into my attic?	Yes, and here is what the ventilation and the underside of the deck looked like.
How many layers are on my roof?	A number, and how they know it.
Does my roof meet current code?	Where it does, where it does not, and what that adds to the price.
What could still change the price?	A short, specific list. The things nobody can know until the old roof comes off should be few.

A real roofing estimator has to be a roof expert who can answer all of these. A quote sent from a satellite photo usually cannot. At Master Roofing, estimators train every month on building codes and on what roofing materials are made of.