How to Price a New Metal Roof...?

Someone asked me recently to “ball park the price of a metal roof." I'm afraid I insulted him when I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The useful answer is so long and conditional as to be almost useless. Our company alone offers metal roofs that start at under $1.00 per square foot and go up to over $15. Adding labor on top of these numbers and you can easily have a range of prices that might be equal a spread of nearly 20 to 1. So I could have answered, “Somewhere between $5,000 and $100,000. How’s that for a ball park?"

The fact is there is just such a range of options that any attempt to ball park is apt to establish a ridiculous standard against which any given job will have no bearing. We have “economy” roofs that are intended to be utilitarian and fast to install. They’re not particularly pretty, and a lot of people wouldn’t want them on their home, but they work for what you pay and some people are just tickled pink with the result. On the other hand, I have clients who want the best and want their investment to showcase their home. For that class of client, few things announce “Estate Quality” like a solid copper or zinc roof.

Metal roofing materials also have the distinction of having possibly the widest variable in labor rates for their installation. Since there is such a colossal difference in detail levels between the cheapest styles of material and the finest, the labor is correspondingly miles apart in cost. The time it takes to slap down and “through fasten” long, seamless panels on a walkable pitch roof is possibly one tenth of the time it might take to custom-fit the details around architectural details on a steep, complex English Tudor mansion. As one considers the range of variables, it becomes easier and easier to understand why “ball parking” is fraught with peril when it comes to metal roof prices.

One thing is certain, whether you’re after the most functional or the most impressive, few materials offer the breadth of value and appearance afforded by metal roofing materials. If you visit our metal roof sales website, www.metalroofnet.com, to investigate metal roofing options, you’ll quickly see from the wide variety of looks why it’s tough to approximate metal roof prices. However, what would be useful is to pick a profile or two from a few of the photos you like, and see if there’s a style of building or home that’s close to yours. With a profile and an approximate roof line to consider, a quick phone call to us and a few more questions answered and you could come away with something approximating a useful number. Of course, if you really want to do your homework, visit www.ReRoof101.com and order a computerized aerial photo map and price formula for you home and get VERY useful numbers indeed. Then you’ll be a long way ahead of even experienced roofers in having good numbers from which you can make decisions about your next roof – metal or otherwise.