A leaking roof can be a nightmare. When rain pounds its way through your roof, it not only damages your homes interior, it also damages the spirits of the people who live in the home. Soggy carpet, ruined drywall and smelly mildew all have a physiological impact on the individuals who live in the structure, literally making living in the home a nightmare.
Hiring a roofing contractor to repair the problem often adds to the tension. Once a bid comes back and reveals the true costs of the repairs, it may seem impossible to escape the leaking roof nightmare. Use these six ways to save money when hiring a roofing contractor and stop the worry of high repair costs.
Know Your Roof
Climbing on a roof isn't recommended for the faint of heart. It's a dangerous task that's often best left up to the professionals. But getting to know your roof is essential to the process of saving money when you need to hire a roofing contractor. However you don't need to get out the ladder and scaffold. Knowing the roof can be as simple as looking at it. A pair of binoculars comes in handy when inspecting areas of concern.
When you can visually account for roofing damage, you can better ascertain costs when they come from multiple bids. A cost break down list is hard to understand when you don't understand the repairs themselves. A visual confirmation of the damages is critical when saving money during the process of choosing a roofing contractor.
Draw a Blueprint
With your own blueprint in hand, you can save money by knowing exactly what the true costs of materials will be, allowing you to better judge the difference between bids and roofing contractors labor costs.
You don't have to be a professional draftsman to create a blueprint of your roof. On a big piece of paper, sketch out the basic dimensions of your roof. Use visual estimating to transfer the estimated measurements to your blueprint.
Visual estimating can be done by measuring the house along the ground with a tape measure. Counting tiles, shingles, screws or other roofing reference points on a roof allows you to obtain the rise of the roof for easy estimation. For example, count the number of shingles from edge to peak and multiply the width of the shingle. Transfer these measurements to your blueprint safely from the ground without ever setting foot on your roof.
Get Multiple Bids
Multiple bids help you find the correct average price of costs and materials in your area. With several bids in hand, you can better judge the difference between contractor's prices. While the recommended roofing contractor you called bid higher than the one you've never heard of, you'll better understand why there's a difference between them with multiple bids.
Choosing the Right Bid
It may seem obvious to choose the cheapest bid, but that is not always the best choice. While one roofing contractor may cost less than the rest, they may be leaving out an important part of the project that the other contractors have noted and written into their bids. Bids that are too high may be diagnosing a problem that other roofing contractors are overlooking. Find out why their bid is so high before choosing the lowest bidder.
Buying Materials
More often than not, a roofing contractor can get better deals on materials than the average homeowner can, but it's always worth a shot to try. You can still check for bargains and compare them against the roofing contractor's materials price list. Finding bargain deals on roofing nails, drip edge or flashing are all possible with a little research.
Clean up
The average homeowner probably isn't going to climb up on the roof and start swinging a hammer with the roofing crew. But getting your hands dirty to save a few dollars on the overall bill is still possible. Cleaning up all of the debris from the job is a great way to save money when hiring a roofing contractor.
Posted by: TrustedProsSuggested Reading For You
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