What Else Impacts The Cost Of Your New Roof
Now you know how to roughly calculate your roofs square footage. And dont forget to plug that number into our roof calculator to get a rough estimate for your roof replacement.
Remember, the number of squares your roof has is one of the biggest cost factors for your replacement. But to truly understand what goes into the size of your investment, you need to know the other important factors that impact the cost of your new roof.
Because a roof replacement is such a sizable investment, we want every homeowner to understand what exactly factors into the final cost. Thats why we wrote another article breaking down the 9 factors that impact the cost of your new roof.
Since 1990, the team at Bill Ragan Roofing has proudly helped homeowners in Nashville and surrounding areas with all of their roofing needs. Giving you a positive and educational experience during a stressful time is our main goal. Even if you decide were not the right fit, at least youll have the knowledge needed to make the right decisions.
Check out this article on 9 Factors That Impact the Cost of Your New Roof to learn how a roofing contractor comes up with the final number for your replacement estimate.
Metal Roof Measuring Tool
There are a few different metal roof measuring tools that can be used to help determine the size and slope of a metal roof. A metal ruler or tape measure can be used to measure the length and width of the roof. A level can be used to measure the slope of the roof. A calculator can also be used to help determine the square footage of the roof.
Because the majority of residential homes do not have a perfectly square roof, measuring a metal roof can be difficult. Roofs of homes also have pitch and angles that must be considered. Weve compiled a list of some of our best tips and tricks for measuring metal roofs. If you have skylights or other areas that need to be modified, make sure they are included. Check to see if anything on the roof is breaking up the smooth plane. Measure on the edge of the shingles rather than at the base. To make an informed decision about the roof deck, you must first determine its dimensions. Extra materials will be required if installation conditions differ greatly from those encountered prior to installation.
What Is A Square In Construction
A square is an imperial unit of area used specifically in the construction business in the US and Canada. It is equal to 100 square feet.
Typically, you can expect to see squares in calculations connected with roofing, and it’s also not uncommon to use it for siding materials, like wallpaper or drywall. The unit can come in handy in the case of larger construction endeavors.
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Calculate Materials Labor And Overhead
Now you need to find the costs of your other materials as well as labor and overhead. When you first learned how to bid a roofing job, its likely that you neglected several key costs, including a portion of rental costs or insurance costs. This list will help you find those missing costs.
First, before you start calculating your materials and labor, refamiliarize yourself with any relevant building codes, because they can significantly impact your calculations. For example, some municipalities require you to use more than four nails to secure shingles. Others require an ice and water protector. It all depends on the location of the home.
Once youre ready, calculate each material youll need:
Ready To Raise The Roof
Now that you have an idea of what to expect, gathering and evaluating roofing estimates will be much less overwhelming. But even with this background knowledge, dont be shy about asking your roofing candidates any questions you haveno matter how nitty gritty. Roof repairs arent cheap, so clarify anything youre unsure of before you sign on that dotted line.
Eager to get your feet back on the ground? Check out our DIY section for projects you can safely handle yourself.
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Below, there is a simple triangle, and the math used to work out how to make a proper measurement. Once you work through the basic triangle, we will review a typical roof, and how to apply some simple math to calculate how much material you will need for a roof used in our hypothetical example.
1 roof square = 100 square feet The length times the height of a triangle is twice its area . So if you divide your answer of a product of length times height by two, you will get the area of a triangle. /2 = Area
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In Figure above: l=30 feet h=12 feet /2 = 180 square feet
Now that the basic concept has been covered, lets take a look at a more complex roofing system. In this overhead view you see both a hip-end section, and gable ends. With a more complex roof such is this one, it is highly recommended that you make a basic sketch. By doing so, it will be easier to mark your measurements, and calculate the necessary materials for the project. For this example we will break this roof up into sections labeled A through E.
In the figure B. above, a sketched portion is a basic triangle. As we did in the first example, measure the length of the eaves, and the vertical line from the eaves half way point to the peak. Multiply these numbers, and then divide the answer by two./2 = 270 square feet
S1 = /2 = 135 square feetS2 = 50 × 15 = 750 square feetS3 = /2 = 135 square feet
Tips For Estimating Flashing Costs
Estimating flashing costs highly depends on the specific style and brand you will be installing. Apron flashing might come in a 10ft stick piece, while trim coil flashing might come in a 50ft roll.
Its essential to get on the roof to assess what flashing has been used and how much needs to be replaced.
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Tips For Estimating Underlayment
Now that youve got a handle on your shingles, theres one more major roofing material youll want to account for. Underlayment is a waterproof material installed under your shingles to act as a second line of defense against water damage to your roof. Once you know how many squares your roof is, its pretty easy to estimate the amount of underlayment your job will require.
A roll of underlayment will usually cover 4 squares. So, just divide your total number of squares by 4.
The result will tell you how many rolls of underlayment youll need. Look into the cost of a roll of underlayment in your neck of the woods to ballpark how much you can expect to pay.
How To Estimate Roofing Materials
This article was co-authored by David Bitan. David Bitan is a roofing professional, licensed contractor, and the owner and founder of Bumble Roofing based in Southern California. With over 12 years of construction industry experience, David specializes in restoring, repairing, and maintaining residential, commercial, and industrial roofs. With over 60 years of combined experience, Bumble Roofing provides easy, friendly services to structures including residential, commercial, industrial, multi-family, and government buildings along with hospitals, hotels, and churches.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 16 testimonials and 84% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 727,096 times.
Knowing how to estimate roofing materials is important. Not only will it help eliminate waste, but it will also ensure that you buy just enough for the roofing job. Youll have to calculate your roof area, or the overall size of your roof, to determine the amount of materials youll need. This wikiHow will show you how to estimate roofing materials for your next project.
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How To Price A Roofing Job
Now that you know approximately how much the job will cost you, you have to decide what to charge your customer. According to Roofing Contractor, more than nine out of 10 roofing professionals wont achieve their goal revenue because they simply do the math wrong. If you want to make a 10 percent margin on a $1,000 job, you charge $1,111, not $1,100. How do you get to that number?
The total cost to you for this job is $1,000. If you want a 10 percent margin, those costs represent 90 percent of the final selling price, while the margin is the other 10. So, the final selling price is equal to the costs to you divided by the percentage: 1,000 / 0.90 = 1,111. Therefore, you charge the customer $1,111.
Lets say you wanted to calculate a 5 percent margin on this same job instead. If so, your costs would be 95 percent of the total selling cost, while the margin is the other five. Again, you write out the percentage as a decimal place and use the same formula. 1,000 / 0.95 = 1,052. So, to achieve a 5 percent margin, youd charge the customer $1,052.
Measuring Or Calculating Gable And Hip Lengths
The slope factor is also used to determine gable lengths when the run length is known. For example, in Figure 4 the bottom left gable measures 16 across from eave to eave and therefore has a run of 8. When this is multiplied by 1.202 the gable distance is 98 . Note that this run can also be multiplied by the hip/valley factor of 1.563 to get a valley length of 126.
Record all your calculations on your drawing as seen in Figure 5 below.
Figure 5. Completed Roof Plan Drawing
Pro Tip: A Note About Waste Factor
Once you have figured out your roof area, you will need to also calculate how much room you need to allow for waste. For metal roofing products on a medium complex roof a waste factor of 15% is advisable. In other words for the 2468 ft2 roof in our example you should multiply by 1.15 giving you 2838.2 ft2 roofing material needed.
Important Note: Most metal roofing products are packaged and sold by the square so for our example roof the number of squares or boxes to purchase is 29.
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What About Other Roofing Costs
Besides the shingles and underlayment, there are a few other things you should factor into your estimation:
- Nails: Nails are sold by the pound. Assume that youll need about 2 ½ pounds of nails per square.
- Flashing: This is a sheet metal barrier installed in all roof valleys and around any chimneys or vents to protect against water seepage. Unfortunately, theres no simple way for a homeowner to estimate how much flashing youll need, so be sure to ask roofers to break this down when youre getting estimates.
- Shingle Disposal: Your old shingles have to come off, so youll need a roofing dumpster to get rid of them. Your roofer will normally handle this, but you may be able to negotiate a bit of a discount if you offer to get the dumpster yourself.
- Labor: Remember that youre not just paying for materials. Be sure to ask the roofers youre considering to separate labor and material costs in their estimates.
Should I Repair My Roof
Repairing your roof may be an option if there is minimal damage or the problems are relatively minor. Repairs will cost less, usually between $325 to $1,377 for an asphalt roof. Some common repairs include damage to the flashing, worn or curled shingles, pooling water, and minor leaks inside the home. However, if your roof is reaching its lifespan, it may be time to replace it completely. However, there are estimates you could recover about 60 percent of the roof replacement costs when you decide to sell your home. Therefore, if you plan to sell in the next few years, replacement might make more financial sense than repairing the roof.
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Calculating The Area Of A Complex Roof
Areas of complex roofs with multiple hips and valleys take the most time to calculate. Start by making a rough sketch of the roof. To simplify the calculation, break down the sketch into rectangles and right triangles , then take as many measurements of the roof as you can to match the sides of the rectangles and triangles on the sketch.
Use visual cues from the existing roof shingles or roof sheathing to determine square lines off eaves edges or ridges. These cues will help you measure the lengths of the sides of the rectangles and triangles. For instance, the cutout slots on shingled roofs run perpendicular to the eaves, and nail rows in sheathing are pretty close to square also. It is difficult sometimes to get accurate measurements. Dont get too concerned though just round lengths to the nearest 6 in.
With the sketch filled in with measurements, you can determine the size of the roof area. The area of a rectangle is length multiplied by width, whereas the area of a right triangle is the length of the two sides that meet at the 90-degree corner multiplied together and divided by two .
Tally the square footages of all the rectangles and triangles, which will give you the total square footage for the roof. The example here shows the calculation for a roof with two hips.
Two: Split Tricky Shapes Into Squares And Rectangles
Once you have these figures, return to the safety of your home. Notice in the image above that the hip roof is made of two triangles and two trapezoids. Trapezoids are tricky to get the area measurement of, so were going to split each of them into two triangles and a rectangle:
We know enough about the overall measurements of the roof to fill in the missing values. Lets fill the figures in now:
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Consider All The Roofing Materials Needed
Once you have the surface area of the roof, you multiply it by the roofing material costs. Many vendors of roofing materials sell them by the square, so this is a good measurement to use when ordering materials.
These are common materials used:
- Shingles the most common shingles come packaged as three bundles per square.
- Vents and flashing/boots for plumbing and other ventilation pipes.
- Nails like drywallers, roofers go through a lot of nails and/or screws. Shingle manufacturers generally recommend using 4-5 nails per shingle, depending on the row and how windy it is in your climate. This comes up to about 320-480 nails per square.
- Underlayment and ice and water shield underlayment packages usually tell you how many squares the package will cover. Ice and water shield is used on a roofs valleys and other vulnerable areas.
- Protective tarps much like painters, roofers tarp the lawn and items in the attic while they work. You also need to tarp the roof when it starts raining in the middle of a job, and other times you leave the jobsite before the roof is finished.
Regardless of the type of material, you want to add 10-15% to the amount you need, so you dont foot the bill for any supplies that become scrap.
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How To Estimate The Size Of A Roof
If youre replacing a roof, the first consideration needs to be the roofs size so you can accurately estimate project materials.
In the U.S., roofs are measured in square footage, and roofing contractors typically quote projects based on the size of the roof in squares. Consequently, gathering the size of the roof in squares and square footage is the first step.
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Get Professional Help To Estimate Roofing Projects
If youre not ready to climb onto your high-pitch roof with a roofing material calculator in hand, we can help. Our professional roofing contractors are happy to provide a free, no-obligation, no-cost inspection for your roofing job. During that inspection, we measure the length and footage of your roof, note your roofs pitch, and any important details about your roof area, including the current condition, skylights, fireplaces, even down to your drip edge or rake edge. Once were done, we can assess the total roof area and pitch to provide a complete assessment for your roofing project and roofing costs, complete with an estimate to install a new roof.
The Positive Roof Measuring Method
The positive roof measuring method requires you to break the roof up into measurable sections. For image 1.2 find the area of all sections of the roof, and then add them together to find the total area of the roof.
Area of section A = 20 x 60 = 1200 sqft
Area of section B = 20 x 40 = 800 sqft
Area of section C = 20 x 20 = 400 sqft
Therefore, the total area of the roof plan above is 1200 sqft + 800 sqft + 400 sgft = 2400 sqft
Example 1.2
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