As if all the crap in the past year wasn’t enough I find that I now need
to replace the roof of my house. I knew this was coming and
have a bit of money set aside for this but its still hard - I got laid
off about 4 months ago and haven’t worked since.
If you have had your roof replaced I would be interested in hearing
about your experiences. My house is about 750 square feet with a
400 square foot garage in southern California. Shingles presently
on the roof are asphalt. I have got three estimates so far:
$7000 (replace house roof, repair garage roof)
$13000 (replace house and garage roof)
$22000 (replace house and garage roof)
The estimate does not include repairs to the wood under
the shingles. I guess once they get the shingles off they
can try to squeeze more money out of you if they aren’t
honest.
It’s my birthday today and I’m off to the store to get some
vodka and other goodies to celebrate. Until then, I thank
you and look forward to reading your answers!
Seems very, very expensive, although it is California.
We had our Roof re-done as part of a major addition, and it was around $7K. I’m sure it was substantially bigger than yours (2400 sq. ft. 2-story house + garage). 30-year asphalt shingles.
Thanks for making this thread. I’m going to have my roof replaced in the next few months. I’ll be tracking this since it will be my first time dealing with it.
Sounds high to me, but California is rather expensive. Ours was 9000 for a 1500+ sf home, 200+ sq floating deck and 200+ sf outbuilding. They replaced some wood on the front porch, but not a lot.
I’ve had a couple roofs replaced. First roof was on my old house. Asphalt shingle, hail damage. Thank you, insurance company. They did a tear-off of the old roof, repaired some decking underneath (for which they just charged me the cost of the plywood) and put the new roof on. It was about 20 years ago, and I think it was about $5K. House was a straight 1000 sq ft, no garage.
I had a roofer I found on craigslist replace the roof on my 170-yr old farmhouse. He didn’t take off the corrugated underneath, and put another metal roof on top. This guy was a one-man show, and my roof is steeply pitched. He charged, I think $6K and I bought the new metal. He didn’t take off the old roof because he said it was nailed on with 2" nails and would take too long. One area leaked from the get-go and he try patching it and doing other things, but nothing worked.
A year later, I had a tree fall on my house. The insurance company paid for a new roof (thank you!) and a professional outfit tore off both layers of metal roofing, tsk-tsked over the job the other guy had done, did various repairs to rebuild a chimney and main roof beam that were damaged by the tree. Their cost was $24K for a lot more work which was done much better than the first guy.
This is in Tennessee.
It cost me around $5500 (not including repairing the dry rot under shingles) for a ~1150 sq ft. ranch style in the greater Sacramento area, but that was back in 2009. I think the highest estimate I got was around $7000. Is there some reason the cost of a re-roof in California would have increased that much in 12 years? It doesn’t seem like inflation would solely account for the difference between what I paid and the OP’s estimates.
I had a very informal quote of $10k on about 1000sf of roof in Chicago. That included full tearoff, plywood over the current boards, disposal, 30 yr shingles. They said it could go higher if there were unexpected complications.
We had the garage roof done. I think it added up to about 1200sqft of roof, with one fixture (an exhaust vent tube, I think), for about $4K. Obviously it was a fairly simple slap and dash (~25% pitch, single A frame with no corners), although a couple of ill 4x8 panels were also replaced.
Yeah, and my house being a ranch-style, pretty much just a rectangle with a relatively shallow sloped roof, probably meant it it was a pretty easy job. Actually I remember all the roofers from whom I got estimates commented that my house would be a really easy job. So I probably paid a below average price for having my roof replaced.
Live in coastal Virginia and last year had 23 sq’s (2300 sq ft) of 50 yr CertainTeed fiberglass shingles installed on a one story home. This included removal of 1 layer of shingles, installed new ridge vents and debris removal. No roof sheathing required repair. Cost - $6,000.
Around here (southeastern PA) a typical roof estimate includes roof repair and replacement of typically 2 or 3 sheets of plywood. If there is more damage than that, only then will there be an additional cost for the repairs.
I paid $7000-ish for a 30 year roof on a ranch-style house a couple of years ago. The house is larger than the OP and the garage as well as a back room addition were included, along with new gutters. Removal of the old shingles was included. I didn’t want layers. The OP’s estimates seem a bit crazy to me, but every time I see a price for something in California it seems crazy high to me.
The OP doesn’t mention the type of shingles in the estimates. There’s a big difference between 15 year shingles and 30 year shingles. If you plan on staying in the house for several more decades, pay the extra cash and get the longer lasting shingles.
I personally hate metal roofs, but this is more of a personal thing. Some people like them, some don’t. My neighbor got one and is very happy with it. If you do consider a metal roof, make sure that they include sound insulation as part of the estimate, otherwise you could end up with a roof that is noisy every time there’s a heavy rain.
I’m in Western Canada where we have harsh winters. In 2014 I had the roof done on our house built in 1986. It’s a relatively simple roof design and the house is 1700 sq foot on 3 levels with a detached garage. I also have a 720 sq foot detached garage. The all in cost was $8800 for 30 year fiberglass shingles replacing the original asphalt shingles. Only two pieces of sheeting had to be replaced underneath.
When I had it first inspected, the guy said my roof despite its age was still looking good with no evidence of any immediate need and could probably squeeze a bit more time out of it. I went ahead anyway as the cost certainly won’t be going down and would help with selling had we decided to move.
We had our roof replaced and the roof extended to cover our side porch. We use that porch way more often now than before. We used the contractor who had replaced windows and siding the previous year, as we were happy with his work.
The price does seem a little steep for what I have paid for recent roofing jobs. But I live in the Midwest and you in California so there is probably differences in permit prices, insurance, inspections, etc…
I would spent the money to get it do correctly with no “repair” instead of replace as that area would fail quicker than the replaced area.
When my house was built I did plan on metal roofing but budget constraints at the end dictated asphalt. That still would have been my preferred choice.
I do question the “repair of the wood under the shingles”. If you have attic access to the garage and house they should be able to inspect the underside of the sheathing to look for rot or other obvious damage and the general overall condition.
Sorry, I can’t remember how much our roof cost us. It was 1994, so the prices would be wildly different now anyway, I imagine
What we did do, is I pulled off the old roofing myself. Two layers. I rented a dumpster, had them put it in the driveway where I could just chuck everything in from the rooftop, then got busy with prybars, shovels and a boom box. (1995, remember ) It took a couple days working alone, but it saved us an enormous amount, like a third of the price. I also replaced some plywood sheathing that had rotted.
While it’s true it doesn’t leak, it turned out that the claim from the roofing company that ice won’t build up on a metal roof is a lie. sigh
We didn’t have the roof replaced, but metal clad. It was 7 or 8 years ago and I believe that it cost 12k, so I’m a bit surprised that the middle price the OP was quoted for a replacement is so low. Surprised enough that I’d look for a lot of reviews because the cost of living in New Hampshire is high, but not as high as most of California.
) It took a couple days working alone, but it saved us an enormous amount, like a third of the price. I also replaced some plywood sheathing that had rotted.