Friday, August 24, 2012

Metal Roof Estimate - How To Profit From Getting Them Right

By Tom Tikorski


If you know how to make a correct and reliable metal roof estimate, you could be earning a nice 5- to 6-figure income every year becoming a professional roofing estimator. The sad part is that even some professionals are not doing it right. You need to learn the basics about making a metal roof estimate so that you can evaluate the accuracy of outside estimates or even run some rough calculations on your own. The essentials are easy to understand and master, and when you know how to assess roof difficulty, and measure roofing area in squares, you'll be able to come up with a fairly accurate figure.

Why Take The Trouble of Doing a Metal Roof Estimate?

Roof repair and replacement is expensive and budgets typically run to a few thousand dollars. Making mistakes in the estimate can cause serious overspends. Just making a wrong estimate by a few squares can leave a dent in your pocketbook from your roofing budget. That's one of the major reasons you are better off seeking professional help.

But that's where things become disappointing. When the supposedly expert pros are really unskilled folks who simply go through the motions, the consequences are unpleasant and costly for the helpless home owner. If you do not grasp the essential facts of a metal roof estimate, then you are letting yourself be led by unscrupulous manipulators who will cost you dearly. Talk to any experienced roof estimator who does metal roof estimate work as a job and you'll no doubt hear some horror stories. Some instances of rival estimators making an incorrect assessment about basics like area to be roofed has ended up costing the home owner a few extra thousand dollars - because the roof estimate didn't count squares correctly.

Mistakes Are Costly

Where the estimate of roofing costs depends so intimately upon the area that needs to be covered, a mistake in computing this area is almost criminal. And costly, often very costly, to the home owner. In some cases, the overrun may be several thousand dollars. With metal roof estimates, this risk is higher because the upfront expense of installing a metal roof is higher than that of other types of roofing. As compared with asphalt shingle roofing an error in metal roof estimate can lead to up to spending thrice as much on your project.

But that's incidental. No matter what kind of roof you're installing, precise and accurate measurements are mandatory and especially when there is a serious financial impact involved, it behoves any professional to be extra careful. Being off by 5 squares can mean the home owner will pay $5,000 more for his new roof. And uninformed home owners can be easily misled by unscrupulous or incompetent professionals called in to make a metal roof estimate.




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