Where the Overhead Hides in a Roof Bid

A roof bid is a set of numbers, and some of them are not labeled as what they are. Crew wages, the dumpster, tear-off labor and the supplier markup can each be folded into a per-square price, so the total looks like it covers only shingles and nailing. Overhead and profit are the two items that get buried this way most often. They are real costs of running a roofing company, and a contractor is entitled to charge for them. Your job is to see them on the page so that two bids can be compared on the same terms.

What overhead covers on a roof job

Overhead is the cost of keeping the company open between roofs. It includes the office, the phone line, the insurance the company carries, trucks, trailers, tools that wear out, and the hours spent writing estimates that never become contracts. None of that work happens on your roof, which is why it usually appears in a bid only as a percentage added to everything else, or as a slice of each unit price.

Profit is what remains after those costs are paid. A bid with no separate profit line is not automatically cheaper or more honest. It may simply carry the profit inside the labor rate or the materials markup, where a homeowner comparing totals will not see it. Neither approach is illegal. The question is whether you can find the number when you want to.

Where the overhead hides in a bid

Three places account for most of the confusion. Read each one before you decide which bid is higher.

• The tear-off unit price. A figure like a set amount per square for removal and haul-away may include the company's office and truck costs along with the crew's time. Two bids with the same crew size can carry very different tear-off rates for that reason alone.
• The materials line. A single shingle figure can mean the supplier's invoice, or the invoice plus a markup for handling, delivery and the company's margin. Ask which one you are looking at.
• The general conditions line. Some bids have a lump sum for site protection, daily cleanup, portable toilet, fuel and supervision. The sum is often not broken down, so you cannot tell whether it is a real job cost or a catch-all for overhead.

Why St. Louis weather makes this line matter

A roof in this region does not always go on in the clean four-day window a bid assumes. A wet April, a cold week in February after the freeze and thaw cycle has loosened the deck, or a run of storms in late spring can stop the crew for a day or two at a time. The trucks are still parked, the office still runs, and the insurance premium still comes due. If the bid sets overhead as a per-day figure, those stalled days are paid for by you. If overhead is folded into the unit prices, the cost stays hidden until the invoice shows a higher total than the bid suggested.

Ice damming at the eave is another reason the line matters. Some roofs need extra underlayment or a wider membrane run at the eaves, and that work adds labor and material to the quote. If the markup on those extra items is buried in a general figure, you cannot judge whether the price is fair for the added work.

The materials line and the markup

Ask whether the shingle price you were quoted is at cost, at cost plus a stated percentage, or at a retail figure with the markup inside it. None of these is wrong on its face. Each one produces a different total, and you cannot compare two bids that answer this question differently. If one contractor quotes materials at cost and charges overhead as a separate line, and another quotes a single all-in material figure, the two totals are not the same kind of number.

What to ask for in writing

Before you sign, ask the contractor to put these items in writing so that the bid can be read without a phone call.

1. Overhead as a separate line, or a stated percentage that is applied to a named subtotal.
2. Profit as a separate line or a stated percentage, so you can see what the company keeps.
3. Whether the materials figure is at cost, at cost plus a markup, or retail, and the markup rate if there is one.
4. A breakdown of the general conditions lump sum into its parts, along with how the figure changes if the job runs longer than planned.

If a contractor declines to split these out, that is a choice you can weigh. It does not prove the price is high, but it does mean you are comparing a total you cannot take apart against totals you can.

Checking the numbers before you sign

Take the two bids you are considering and write each one on the same sheet, with the same five lines: materials, labor, tear-off and haul-away, permit fees, and overhead and profit. Where a bid does not show a line, write the figure as unknown instead of zero. Then ask each contractor to fill in the unknowns in writing. The bid that can answer every line is the one you can compare with confidence, and the gap between the two totals will tell you which questions still need an answer.