Most roofing companies will give you a number on a phone call. The number is bounded by the company's price-per-square average; if the project is at the high end of typical, the number is too low. If at the low end, too high. Either way it is anchored, and the anchoring distorts every subsequent conversation.
We do not do this. Here is why, and here is what we offer in its place.
What phone-estimates actually predict
A phone estimate is based on:
- The square footage you report (often inaccurate)
- The material you describe (rarely complete)
- The complexity you describe (almost always under-described)
- The contractor's standard mark-up over their base square cost
The number that comes out the other end has a one-in-three chance of being within 15% of the eventual contracted price. The other two-thirds of the time, it is materially off — usually low, which is the dynamic the industry has selected for.
What we offer instead
A free on-site visit, scheduled within five business days. The visit takes two to three hours. We leave without a number; the written quote follows within five to seven business days after the visit. It is itemized — material, labor, deck repair allowance, contingency, timeline.
A written quote from us is closely accurate. The vast majority of projects we have estimated have closed within 8% of the quoted number, including all line items.
What this costs us, and what it earns
The free visit is real labor — two to three hours per site, plus another two to three hours preparing the written quote. We absorb that cost on every visit. Most of those visits do not turn into projects. We have made peace with the arithmetic.
What it earns is the conversation we want to have with the owner. The visit is also a sales conversation — the first half-hour is, anyway. But the rest of it is the genuine information exchange that should precede a significant home investment.
The owners who hire us, after we have done a visit, have already made the decision before the quote arrives. The quote confirms a project that has already been agreed to in principle. The owners who choose another contractor have, often enough, gotten a phone-estimate from someone, decided we are too slow or too expensive, and moved on. We are happy that the system filters that way.
What you can do to make the visit shorter
If you have specific information ready, the visit is more productive:
- The age of the roof (your closing documents will have it)
- Any prior repair history
- The current insurance carrier
- Your timeline (urgent? thinking about it for next year?)
- Photographs of any specific damage or concerns
We will still walk the property. But the conversation moves faster.
A short answer for why we are stubborn about this
The phone estimate is the line item in the contracting industry that has produced the largest gap between what owners are promised and what they get. We have spent thirty years building a practice where that gap is small. The price of that practice is that we are slower in the first conversation. The result is that we are accurate when the conversation matures into a contract.
If accuracy matters more than speed, the visit is the right call.
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