What a roof actually costs here

The five things that actually move the number

Homeowners shop by shingle brand, which is close to the smallest variable on the page. What sets the price is this, roughly in order.

Pitch. A roof steep enough to need staging and harnesses costs meaningfully more per square than one a crew can walk. On the older, steeper houses near the core this is a real line.

Layers. Tearing off one and tearing off two are different jobs with different disposal weight. A quote that does not say which it assumes is not finished.

Complexity. Valleys, dormers, chimneys, skylights, a porch roof tying in at an angle. Every intersection is labour and every one is a place that can leak later. Two houses with the same square footage can sit thousands apart on geometry alone.

Decking. Nobody knows what is under the shingles until they are off. See below, because this is where the arguments happen.

Underlayment, ice barrier and flashing. Felt or synthetic. Membrane at the eaves or not, which in this climate is not a trimming. New step flashing at the walls or the old stuff bent back into place. These are the quiet lines where a cheap quote got cheap.

The decking line, in writing

Ask for a rate per sheet, fitted, and an expected count. Not a lump sum and not a promise to be fair about it.

Bad decking is where roof jobs turn sour, and the money is never really the reason. The reason is that nobody settled the number while everyone was still being reasonable. Agree a rate per sheet up front and six replaced boards is a sum you can do in your head. Leave it open and it becomes a negotiation held at speed, with a crew standing on an uncovered house and the weather doing whatever it likes.

On the older houses in the core, where the deck is boards laid with gaps rather than sheets, ask the further question: what happens if the boards have to be sheeted over. That is a real cost and it belongs in the quote rather than in a surprise.

Where the insurance money sits, and when

A replacement cost policy pays in two instalments and the first one is smaller than people expect. What arrives is the depreciated figure: what a roof of that age was worth, rather than what a new one costs. The rest is held back under the name recoverable depreciation and released once the finished invoice reaches the insurer.

Two things follow from that and both cost people money. If you take the first cheque and do not do the work, the second payment is gone for good. And the deductible comes out of your side every time, which is the whole reason the rebate rule exists.

Read your own declarations page for two things before you ring anybody: whether you are on replacement cost or actual cash value, and what the wind and hail deductible is, because in this state it is often a percentage of the dwelling value rather than the flat figure you remember from the rest of the policy.

Registered is not vetted

Every contractor doing business in Nebraska has to register with the state Department of Labor and keep workers compensation cover on file, and the register is public. That check takes a minute and it is worth doing, particularly after a storm brings out of state crews into the city.

Read what the Department says about it though. Registration does not ensure quality of work and it does not protect against fraud. It tells you somebody filed, and nothing more.

So the paperwork has to carry the rest. An address in this county rather than a post box. The scope in writing with the five items above broken out. Warranty terms on product and on labour, separately, with the company name on them. Who is actually on the roof, because a lot of roofing here is subcontracted. Proof of liability cover with the dates still current.

And the cancellation right on the contracts page, which is better in this state than most people expect and is easy to lose track of once a storm has been through.