Have you ever wondered how many roofing and window companies come up with an estimate for a roofing job? The process, depending on how you look at it, is both complicated and simple. Simple in the sense that the process can be summed up into a few steps. But complicated because these steps involve a lot of measurement and computations.
We won’t be going into the calculations in this article, but we will outline the steps for you. This will give you a better understanding of how services like ours come up with our fees whenever we send you an estimate. This will also help you understand the way your roofer plans to work on your roofing project.
Measurements
Start by figuring out how many hundred square feet are in a lot of the property. This will give you an idea of how wide the roof needs to be. It will also help you figure out how many shingles you to need to purchase. More on this later.
Start your measurement by getting the length and the width of the property, then the area. Once you have the area, divide that by a hundred. This computation should give you the number of squares (a term used by roofing and window installers) that can be found in the property–if the roof were flat.
Check the Pitch
The next thing you need to do is to check the pitch of the roof. Starting from the edge of the roof, measure around twelve feet. At the edge of that measurement, measure vertically up to the peak of the current roof to check for the pitch.
Depending on the pitch of your roof, you will need to use anywhere from 15% to 70% more shingles than your computation in the first step. Remember where you got the number of squares in step one? Multiply that by the ratio of how many more shingles your pitch will require you to use, and you’ll have a rough idea of how many squares you’ll be needing for the entire roof.
Adjust for Wastage
The last thing you need to do is to adjust that number for wastage. You won’t be able to utilize all of the roofing shingles you buy since roughly around 15% of that will go towards wastage due to various variables throughout the roofing process. Plan for that so that you don’t end up with an unfinished roof with no shingles.
At Ashmen Installations Inc., we make sure to stay fully transparent with our customers about our estimation process. So if you need help with your roofing job or even with a window replacement, rest assured that we will only give you a fair and honest estimate backed up by a solid process. Call us at (877) 274-6361 or fill out our contact form for a consultation.