New roof $$$ shock

[bruceb58]

Usually, when you get bids that are out of whack, it means they are super busy and will take a job if they happen to overbid it like crazy and someone accepts it.

Keep on looking for someone who is less busy or wait until the weather is better when prices drop.

Comp roof in California Tahoe area, 5 years ago was $9200 for a 2600sf two story(not counting garage). 40 YEAR GAF-ELK Timberline material.

 

[tpenfield]

3800 sq ft seems like a lot of roof. Does that make sense, and have you checked the dimensions yourself? Is there more roof than house?

 

[Bayou Dave]

3800 sq ft seems like a lot of roof. Does that make sense, and have you checked the dimensions yourself? Is there more roof than house?

There is more roof than house due to the pitch. 35' wide house needs about 38 linear feet of roof truss/plywood on 3/12 pitch.
Anyone can calculate the size of trusses here:

http://www.wendrickstruss.com/Calculator/calc.asp

 

[jbcurt00]

Plus 1-2ft overhang on all sides

 

[tpenfield]

If you have about a 3500 sq ft single story house ( including garage ) you would expect about 3800 sq ft of roof. If you have a 3500 sq ft 2 story house (or even a 2+ story house), then you would expect to have a lot less roof as compared to your house sq. footage.

Not sure the OP shared any parameters of the house itself. :noidea:

 

[Bayou Dave]

If you have about a 3500 sq ft single story house ( including garage ) you would expect about 3800 sq ft of roof. If you have a 3500 sq ft 2 story house (or even a 2+ story house), then you would expect to have a lot less roof as compared to your house sq. footage.

Not sure the OP shared any parameters of the house itself. :noidea:

He did mention 3800 sf of roof. Probably single story.

 

[ondarvr]

Yes, single story, 2,400 or so of living space, a wide garage, plus a 12'x24' covered portion of the deck, it comes to around 3,575 sqft of roof by my quick measuring.

The 3,800 figure included waste.

 

[Bayou Dave]

Yes, single story, 2,400 or so of living space, a wide garage, plus a 12'x24' covered portion of the deck, it comes to around 3,575 sqft of roof by my quick measuring.

The 3,800 figure included waste.

I have a friend in the home improvement business and he charges $400 to $450 per square for metal roofing. 38 squares would make it $15,200 to $17,100. He is in North Carolina. Maybe prices are lower there than where you are.

 

[jkust]

When we got our main house re-roofed back a few years, the bids were all over the board. They made no sense at all. For fun, I called a metal roofing company just to see what one would cost. The cost of the metal roof was about 40k for our house. I declined and the metal roofer said 'let me give you a shingle roof quote'.
His shingle bid was about 1/3 of what the shingle roofers were asking. I'm thinking he screwed up and possibly either bid too low or maybe just gave us a fair bid while everyone else was too high so we went ahead with him and ended up having him do a bunch of real copper roofing as well since the shingle bid was so low.
The copper story gets a bit more complicated because at that time copper was going up and down all the time so he waited to buy the copper and the price ended up going way up and he tried to get out of the contract which of course I wouldn't agree to.

 

[StarTed]

I'm back. The trip was different this time. The roads were bare and wet, not slick but I had fog most of the way across eastern Washington both ways. There were people out ice fishing on Moses Lake and 2 large open holes in the ice on Kechalus Lake near Snoqualmie pass. The temperatures on top of the passes were higher than below.

I got to Ebey island too late last night so I got up early this morning to talk with my son. He quickly calculated that $35,000 is in the ball park for 38 squares in the area. He said you'd probably get bids between $31,000 and up to $45,000. He thought that the large local contractor in the Monroe area is a reputable contractor. He mentioned that they probably included a tear off, a layer of plywood, ice and water shield (required under metal in Washington) and the metal roofing plus labor.

He works in the commercial side of a large roofing company in Lynnwood. He said that the metal manufacturers cut prices for large orders and look at the annual purchases from the roofing companies to figure their prices. The company he works for does hundreds of thousands of squares per year so they get a pretty good discount. That means you will pay more for the material if you do it yourself.

The price of ice and water shield is all over the place depending upon the quality of the products.

You can go down to the local suppliers and get composition roofing nearly as cheap as the roofing companies can. He said that "there is a reason people use comp.".

PM me if you want more specific information.

 

[ondarvr]

Star Ted

Thank you very much for that info, I had another reputable contractor that doesn't do metal estimate the bids would have been in the same range as what your son said, so it looks accurate.

Looks I may go the comp direction, I'm not going to spend retirement money on a roof that will outlast me. Heck, this place may wash away in a flood
next year, not worth the cost even though metal is a great product.

 

[sphelps]

I have about the same sq ft of roof ... I built the house 7 years ago and had metal roofing quoted at around 23 grand .. That was aluminum ...
I ended up going with arch shingles ... I bought the materials and had someone install .. I think that was around 8 or 9 grand if I remember correctly ..
So your quote may be a little high but not too much I'm thinking ..

 

[brian4321]

My cousin is a roofer here in central Illinois and he said his price for shingle tear off and putting metal on for an average roof is around $350 a square. But he said there are a lot of variables too that can really increase the price like having to replace sheeting or rotten trusses or adding a vapor barrier.

 

[tommarvin]

You roof your house, just do one piece or side at a time

 

[ondarvr]

You roof your house, just do one piece or side at a time

Ten years ago no problem, now, well, not interested. At 60 I'm not going to risk injuring my back or anything else, I'm in very good shape and I want keep it that way.

 

[tommarvin]

Any family members for a work party, and bbq after