New Roofing Contractor

jason97z28

Just received my roofing license and I live in central Florida I am trying to get an idea on what to price per square....For a residential here in Florida it is going any where from $170-$200 a square for a 30 year timberline but my question is what to charge on a new contruction roof??

Ed the Roofer

Attend some contractor business educational seminars. The information is invaluable and time well spent. I know of courses put on by Certainteed, GAF, and Air Vent. Attend them and learn about the business side of running a company. Ask other contractors you meet in person to mentor you, providing they are not in direct competition with you. I am making the assumption that you have the know how to be a basic roofing mechanic already.

You will probably be afraid to charge what you should be charging for a proper job, so you will have to go to the school of hard knocks for awhile.

The true answer is to figure out your OWN, labor costs including burden, material costs, operating overhead, and DESIRED profit. Burden would be any insurance costs and withholding taxes and the percentage rate your state charges you for unemployment insurance for your employees.

Ensure that if you utilize subcontractors, that they truly are subcontractors and not misclassified employees. If they are, eventually it will catch up to you, and it will not be worth it. Also, legally speaking, define what type of business classification you will maintain, such as Sole Owner, Inc., or Sub-Chapter S. Speak with your attorney and accountant for advice.

Even if you intend on being one of the laborers, treat your costs as you would any other competant employee and make sure that you PAY YOURSELF. Ensure that there is enough income to cover the costs of any warranty repairs you may be required to take care of. Also, as you progress, you must build up enough of a reserve or have access to a line of credit for cash to cover the possibility of non-payment or slow payment from any customer and any seasonal down time.

When you get a job, mail out or hand deliver a marketing flier to the neighborhood you are working in. Prepare an end of job satisfaction form or a " How Did We Do " form to seek customer testimonials and also ask for referrals from each of your "Satisfied" customers.

Good Luck. It is a hard business with many uncontrollable adversities, but has the potential to be extremely rewarding.

Ed

Grumpy

I called out the most expensive roofers I could find and got them to bid my house... yeah I am an A-Hole but I know it has happened to me too... that's just the industry we work in.

Anyways like I said I called out the most expensive and I pretty much matched their price, but before I did match their price I made sure I had a budget in place which predicted my costs to make sure that in doing these jobs for $x I wouldn't be losing.

You see it doesn't matter what you charge if you don't know your costs. First you need to know your costs. Ed had some good advice, I also highly suggest asking your acocuntant to put together a budget and a forecase for you. He/She will tell you what you need to charge to make money.

BTW my budget is about 5 pages long and 2007's will be triple the size since I am trying to detail more of my costs rather than lumping them.

I'll give ya a crash course in knowing your costs...

First think about anything you will spend to actually do the job. This includes your truck, ladders, tools, cell phone, spare bed room you use as an office, insurance license fees, etc etc etc... You see these is much more to job than labor and material. Rule of thumb, if you think maybe, a you incur a cost you add it to this part.

Figuring material is easy, if youc an measure, so I won;t bother discussing that.

Now in the first step you figured your overhead (that's the most important part). Now figure how long the job will take in terms of hours. If you are working with the crew I highly suggest you count your hours. How much do you pay per hour, add in your taxes.

Now we have three number, overhead, materials, labor. Add them up. This is the CHEAPEST you could ever imagine doing the job for unless you WANT TO LOSE MONEY. I even suggest adding something to this number for padding incase you make a mistake. That little something/padding is called profit.


One more thing, throw out the idea of "the going rate". This is sure to get you in trouble, and is definetly what you were asking weather you knew it or not. If you charge the going rate but can't produce as fast as most you will lose your a$$. For example, I know guys who can lay squares per hour, but I would be lucky if I could do 1 square in an hour. Therefore if I were to charge the going rate for my time I would be losing.

BTW a small piece of advice is do what you do well and hire others to do what you don't like doing or don't have the time to do. I don't work well, I am out of practice, slow and clumsy... so I try to stick to what I do well: management, ideas, strategy and customer service.