The Door Knock After a Chesterfield Storm
Somebody is on the porch. They have a clipboard, a branded polo and a friendly opener about your neighbours. They may be from a company two miles away that has roofed this street for years, or from a crew that arrived on Tuesday and will leave in September. The four minutes that follow decide which.
Door knocking is not the problem
It is worth saying plainly, because the opposite is usually implied. Knocking on doors after a storm is normal, legal work, and plenty of good local roofing companies do it. A hailstorm genuinely does damage roofs that their owners cannot see from the ground, and somebody has to tell them. Treating everyone on the porch as a fraud will cost you a roof you needed.
The problem is narrower and it is seasonal. Slightly more than half of this metro's annual hail arrives in April and May, and a severe season pulls in enormous out of area capacity, which is exactly what 2025 did. Some of that capacity is good and stays. Some of it is here for one season, is working through a chain of subcontracts, and will not exist as an entity you can reach when the flashing at your chimney lets go in the third winter.
So the job is not to say no at the door. It is to find out, quickly and politely, which of those two you are talking to.
What to ask on the porch, in order
What is the company's full legal name, and what is the address?
Write it down while they say it. Not the brand on the polo, the entity name. Then look the address up after they leave. A Chesterfield address is easy to obtain and proves very little on its own, which is the argument of the address page, but an out of state address on a job you need warranty support for in five years is a fact worth having up front.
Who employs the crew that would do my roof?
Directly employed, or subcontracted. Both exist and both can be fine. What you want to know is whether the entity you would contract with is the entity that would be standing on the roof, and if not, how many links there are in the chain.
Can your insurer email me the certificate of insurance with my name on it?
Not a scan on a tablet. From the agent, addressed to you as certificate holder. It is free, it takes a day, and a company that will not do it has answered the question. This one request does more work than everything else on this page.
What are you proposing to do today, and what does it cost?
If the answer is "nothing, just a free inspection", find out what the inspection produces. A useful inspection produces photographs, measurements and a written scope you keep. An inspection that produces a verdict and a contract to sign is a sales appointment with a ladder.
Is there anything I would sign today?
The correct answer is no. Anything else deserves a slow, careful read at a table, not on a porch, and preferably after two other companies have been up there.
You do not have to let anybody onto your roof on the day they knock, and you do not owe anyone a decision because they are standing there. A company worth hiring will say "take your time, here is my card" without any change in tone. The change in tone is the information.
Two sentences that should end the conversation
These are not judgement calls about sales style. They are things a Missouri roofing contractor is prohibited from offering, and hearing either one tells you how the company approaches rules generally.
Warning sign: an offer to take over the insurance claim
Under RSMo 407.725 a Missouri roofing contractor may not represent or negotiate a homeowner's insurance claim, and may not advertise or offer to. A contractor may document the roof and be present when the adjuster inspects. The claim stays in your name and the correspondence stays with you.
Warning sign: any offer touching your deductible
The same statute makes it unlawful for a contractor to advertise or promise to absorb, rebate or otherwise take care of any part of an insurance deductible. There is no legal version of this, including the ones dressed up as a discount or a credit at signing.
A third one is not illegal but is nearly as informative: any statement that your roof is damaged, delivered before anyone has been on it. Whether a given storm damaged a given roof depends on stone size, wind direction, slope, pitch and shingle age. It is established with photographs, not from the kerb. The storm record page sets out what the regional data does and does not support.
And a fourth, which is the oldest one in the trade: "I can only hold this price until the end of the day." Roofs do not have same day pricing. A deadline on an estimate exists for one reason, which is to prevent you obtaining a second estimate.
The half hour that decides it
- Look up the entity name you wrote down. Not the brand. See whether it is registered, where, and how long the listing has existed.
- Look up the street address on its own. If a dozen unrelated businesses share it, you are looking at a suite service, which is common and worth knowing.
- Get two more estimates. Not two more prices, two more written scopes. Compare them line by line with the totals covered up.
- Ask all three the same twelve questions from the questions page, and write down what each of them said.
- Check whether the company appears on the Chesterfield table, and if it does not, remember that this table only sees companies registered in Chesterfield and misses good roofers registered elsewhere.
None of this applies. Get it stopped, keep the receipt, photograph everything before and after, and do the diligence on the permanent repair afterward. An emergency tarp is not a roof contract and should never be presented as one, and you should not be asked to sign a full replacement agreement to get water out of your house.
Have Keys Roofing look at it instead
Keys Roofing is a St. Louis company, and if a storm has been through, what it offers is documentation rather than a verdict on the porch: photographs, measurements and a written scope you keep on file whether or not you hire anybody.
A look at the roof here means photographs, measurements and a written scope you keep on file whether or not you hire anybody. If an insurance claim is part of your situation, the claim stays in your name and in your hands: under RSMo 407.725 a Missouri roofing contractor may not represent or negotiate a homeowner's insurance claim, and Keys does not. Keys documents what is on the roof and meets the adjuster there as the contractor.
Straight through to the Keys Roofing office. Roofing, gutters and downspouts across greater St. Louis, and nothing else. Atlas and Malarkey shingles. Licensed and insured.
This goes to Keys Roofing. It does not go to anyone in the ranking. None of the ranked companies pay to appear here, and none of them receive anything you type into this form.