What a Roofer Says Out Loud Is Not in the Quote

A roofer on your driveway can sound certain. He says the crew will haul every nail, that the gutters will get checked, that the flashing around the chimney gets replaced and not reused, and that someone will call you before the trucks arrive on Monday. Some of that may be true. None of it binds the company unless it appears in the written proposal you sign. This page is about the gap between what gets said at the kitchen table and what the paper says, and how to close that gap before you compare totals.

Why spoken promises drift

A roof bid is a short document built from a template, and a salesperson can talk well beyond what the template covers. The crew lead who will actually be on your roof often never hears the conversation at all. Dispatch sends a schedule, a materials order goes to the supplier, and the work follows the paperwork, not the pitch. When the two disagree, the written document is what everyone looks at first. A promise you heard but never read is one you may have to chase after the work is already done.

The four promises to pull out of the conversation

Most verbal commitments fall into four groups. Write each one down while the salesperson is still in the room, then check whether the proposal says the same thing.

• Cleanup. "We'll magnet the yard" should appear as a line with a method and an end condition, such as a magnet sweep of the yard, beds and driveway after the tear-off and again after the final shingle.
• Timing. A start week is not a start date. Ask whether the proposal names a date, a window, or only a season.
• Materials. If the salesperson says Atlas or Malarkey shingles, the proposal should name the product line, the color, and the underlayment beneath them.
• Who comes back. "We'll take care of anything" is not a warranty. The proposal should say who responds to a leak after the job is finished and how quickly.

What a written scope holds that a conversation cannot

A scope is the list of what the crew will do, in order, on your property. The strongest ones read like a checklist: remove the existing layers, inspect the decking, replace damaged boards at a stated unit price, install ice and water shield at the eaves and valleys, install drip edge, replace pipe boots, cap the ridge, and clean up. Each step gets its own line. When a step is missing, ask why, because the missing step is usually where the cost moves later.

Written scope also protects you from the opposite problem, where the salesperson says "we'll do the usual" and nothing is written down. Ask the roofer to write what the usual means on your house. A ridge vent, a second layer tear-off, or the removal of an old satellite mount is not usual on every roof, and a quote that treats it as usual is quoting something other than your roof.

How to run the comparison

Take each roofer's spoken promises and turn them into questions. Then ask every bidder the same questions in writing. A simple sheet works: one row per promise, one column per company, and a blank cell wherever the answer is not in the proposal. Blank cells are the useful ones, because they show which company is relying on a conversation rather than a document.

1. Copy each proposal into one folder, dated by the day you received it.
2. Mark every promise you heard in person and find its matching line in the document.
3. Where a line is missing, send a written question and save the reply.
4. Compare the written replies, not your first impression from the sales visit.

Keep an email trail. If a roofer answers by phone, send a short written summary the same day and ask them to correct anything you got wrong. Silence is not agreement, but a written summary that goes unanswered at least records what you understood.

Common gaps that cost homeowners later

Three gaps come up again and again in St. Louis County roofing. The first is cold weather. A crew may say it will finish before the first hard freeze, but the proposal often does not say what happens to open sections and sealing if temperatures drop before the job closes. The second is the dumpster. A verbal assurance that the container will sit on the driveway does not say where it goes if the driveway is too narrow or the curb is still wet from a freeze thaw cycle. The third is the permit. Many roofers mention a permit in conversation, but the proposal should state who pulls it at the municipal permit desk and who pays the fee.

A fourth gap is the weather plan. "We'll cover it if it rains" should become a written rule about tarping, the cutoff time for tearing off, and who carries the cost of a lost work day. If the paper says nothing about rain, the rain plan is whatever the crew decides that morning.

What to do when the words and the paper disagree

Do not sign a proposal that contradicts what you were promised. Send the roofer a short note that quotes both the spoken promise and the written line, and ask for the document to be corrected before you sign. A reasonable contractor will revise the paper to match the commitment. If the answer is that the conversation was never meant to be binding, you have learned something about how that company treats its commitments, and that is worth knowing before the first shingle goes up.

You can reach the Keys Roofing office at (314) 220-2333 to ask how a particular proposal is written. Bring the proposal, your list of promises, and the lines where each one appears or does not appear. Ask the office to point to the paragraph that covers each item. That single exercise tends to reveal more than a second visit to the driveway.