Why nobody can quote you from the phone
Two houses on the same street can differ by several thousand dollars for reasons you cannot see from the curb. The variables that actually move the price are these:
- Roof area — measured in squares, not by the footprint of the house. A steep roof has considerably more surface than the ground it covers.
- Pitch. Past a certain steepness the crew needs staging and the work slows down, and both go into the price.
- Layers to remove. One layer is a normal tear-off. Two is meaningfully more disposal. Four — which does happen here — is a different job entirely.
- Decking condition, which nobody knows until the old roof is off. This is the single biggest source of legitimate variation.
- Detail work. Chimneys, dormers, valleys, skylights and wall transitions all take flashing and time. A plain gable roof and a cut-up Victorian roof of the same area are not the same job.
- Access. A rowhome with no side yard to stage from costs more to work on than a ranch with a driveway alongside it.
What real customers have reported paying
Rather than publish an invented range, here are job values that J. Parker customers themselves reported on Angi when they left their reviews. These are individual jobs, publicly posted by the people who paid for them.
| $600 | Roof repair |
|---|---|
| $2,000 | Roofing repair |
| $2,500 | Roof repair |
| $2,500 | Roofing |
| $4,500 | Roofing |
| $7,800 | Roofing |
| $10,000 | Roofing |
| $12,000 | Roof replacement |
This is not a price list. It is a set of real jobs at real houses, and yours will be different. What it is useful for is calibration — if somebody has quoted you $22,000 to replace the roof on a small ranch, that number is worth a second opinion.
Repairs are usually cheaper than people expect
A great many roof leaks are a flashing or a vent boot problem, and they are resolved for a few hundred dollars. The reason people assume otherwise is that the contractor who inspects the leak is often the same contractor who profits from replacing the roof.
If your roof has years left in it, the useful thing is to be told so.
The decking question, which is where quotes go wrong
Ask any group of Delaware County homeowners about roofers and this story comes up: a reasonable quote wins the job, the old roof comes off, and then there is a phone call about rotten boards and several thousand dollars. The house is open to the sky and the roof is already in the skip. It is a bad position to negotiate from, which is rather the point.
The fix is simple and almost nobody does it. The price per sheet of replacement decking goes in the contract before the job starts. If boards need replacing, you get photographs and you approve the cost first. The number of sheets can be a surprise; the price of a sheet cannot.
Pennsylvania law is on your side here too. Deviating from the agreed specification without a written change order — signed by both of you, stating the price of the change — is a prohibited act under the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act.
One more thing, on pressure and discounts
A quote that comes with a discount for signing today is not a discount. It is a first number that was never real. Homeowners in this county trade stories about $32,000 becoming $26,000 in the same conversation, and about $17,000 becoming $13,500 after an hour of sitting still.
Our price is the same today, tomorrow and next week. It is also the same whether you are claiming on insurance or paying out of pocket.