inflation is at the highest level that it's been for decades so understandably people that need
to have work done on their roofs are looking for ways to save money doing that well if you need to
replace your roof during these difficult Financial Times then in today's walk in the park I'm going
to tell you ways that you can save money replacing your roof but not only that I'm also going to give
you my opinion about each of those ways tell you what the advantages and disadvantages are of each
so that way you can kind of do your research and make your own wise decision on whether or
not you want to take my advice on everything or just some of the things or anything at all
let's Jump Right In number one you could save money by putting off getting your roof replaced
until sometime in the future after you've had a time to save up the money to pay for it would I
recommend that you try to save up the money till sometime in the future so you can pay for it then
maybe that's one of those kind of on the fence type issues there are obviously advantages to
putting it off and trying to save up the money if you just don't have the money right now but
the reality is that roofing materials cost 22 to 25 percent more than they did just a year ago now
I've been in the roofing industry for 12 years and during that time I've never seen the cost
of roofing materials go down sometimes the price stabilizes for a while sometimes the increases are
much smaller sometimes like what we're seeing in the last two years the price increases are much
much higher but the prices never come back down so the main question that you want to ask yourself if
this is the plan that you're trying to decide on is if you wait a year or two years is the rate of
return you're going to get on saving your money going to be able to outpace the rate of inflation
of roofing materials so if roofing materials have increased 22 to 25 percent just in the last year
and there's no sign that any of that's going to slow down if the price over the next year or two
goes up 25 percent will you have been able to save money and earn that much money on your savings
if not then the rate of inflation is just going to eat away that money that you've been trying
to save and it's going to end up costing you much more doing it in the future even if you're trying
to save the money over that time period as long as you pay it off before that interest and the
payments start to kick in does that make sense number two don't upgrade your roofing materials
now you might find that when the roofing salesman comes over to do his presentation
he could try to convince you to upgrade your roofing material specifically the shingles
and the underlayment now there could be reasons why you would want to upgrade your shingles for
example if you want to have an impact resistant shingle instead of just a standard shingle that's
going to be an upgrade most likely that's going to be a paid upgrade if you want a product that has
more of a luxury look instead of just a standard shingle more than likely that's going to be an
upgrade that you're going to have to pay for but you want to think that decision through before the
salesman ever gets there because you don't want him appealing to kind of your sense of vanity or
any kind of emotion or especially fear that you know if a hail storm hits it's going to destroy
your roof so you better upgrade to these impact resistant shingles just do your homework on that
stuff and make this make that decision try to make that decision ahead of time before this
Roofing salesman even ever gets there now let's talk about the underlayment there's primarily two
types of underlayment to be considered one is called ice and water shield and then the other
is just the primary underlayment talk about that in just a second so ice and water Shield
does have specific applications and sometimes it's even required by your local code so your
roofer might have to install it therefore if you don't currently have it and code requires it then
that's going to be an upgrade that you're probably going to have to pay for then there's the primary
underlayment in the good old days that would have been just the black tar paper and you've seen that
going on roofs before they put the shingles on today though roofers tend to prefer to use a
synthetic underlayment so this is a woven poly and they prefer to use it because it lasts longer it
doesn't tear it's safer to walk on and the nice thing about the synthetic is that it basically
costs the same as the black tar paper so roofers are really getting away from installing the black
tar paper because the cost is pretty equivalent to installing the synthetic felt but what can
happen is a zealous Roofing salesman might try to convince you to upgrade to Ice and Water Shield
that's fine and he might try to convince you to pay for an upgrade to synthetic felt that's
not fine now when I say it's fine that he's going to try to convince you to upgrade to the ice and
water Shield that's that's a normal reasonable thing to ask for but if somebody's trying to
get you to pay to upgrade to the synthetic in my opinion that's unreasonable because their cost is
pretty much the same so that what they may try to do is try to sell you on all the great benefits to
this synthetic underlayment as Oppo as opposed to the black tar paper and try to convince you
to pay extra for that but their cost is pretty much the same so opinion time would I recommend
that you upgrade your your shingles or your underlayment if you're trying to save money
and you're not required to do those upgrades no I would not recommend that you upgrade now would
I recommend that you install the synthetic as opposed to the black tar paper yes but
if I were you I would ask your Roofing salesman to include that as part of the estimate and not
charge you extra for it if he bulks let him walk because the chances are good that you'd be able
to find a roofer that will install that for you without charging you extra for it not giving in
to the pressure that a Salesman puts on you to pay for those kinds of upgrades to your shingles
and your underlayment is a great way for you to save money number three require a full scope of
work and estimate from your roofer you don't want to get an estimate from your roofer that
just simply says replace roof and all accessories or what's even worse than that is we'll do work
for insurance proceeds you want to get a you want to get full scopes of work along with estimates
for the scope of work from each of the roofers so that way you can begin that process of comparing
them to see which one really makes sense for you because some some roofers might include things
that they are upgrading you to automatically like upgraded underlayment or upgraded shingles and if
you don't see the full scope of work you're not going to know those details now if you want to
watch a video that explains how to give a request for proposal to all your different roofers so that
you get estimates that are comparable I don't mean comparable in price but comparable in scope
then you can watch this video right up here and explain it explains the whole process and walks
you through it step by step the other reason that it's a really good idea to get full scopes of work
from your roofing contractors is that way you can see what are the total measurement amounts that
they're building into the job for example do the roofers have the same square footage of shingles
to be installed or does one have considerably more built into his estimate if that's true there may
be a legitimate reason for it and then you're going to want to ask that roofer why that is but
if you don't see those scopes of work itemized like that you're not going to know why this one
is considerably more expensive or why this one is considerably less expensive so opinion time
would I recommend that you get full scopes of work and estimates from each of the roofers
yes I would strongly recommend that you do that because doing that is going to help you understand
the differences in the in the estimates and it'll help you understand why there are differences and
if you don't understand it you can ask the roofers why each of their estimates are different from the
others in the long run that will help you make better decisions which will help you save money
number four don't answer your door after a hail storm or some other major weather event after
a hail storm the door-to-door roofing salesmen creep out of every crevice and start blanketing
the neighborhoods knocking on doors trying to give away free inspections trying to get you
to sign their paperwork blah blah blah blah blah blah think about it this way if you woke up one
morning and your tooth hurt and a dentist just happened to knock on your door would you hire him
I don't know maybe you would What If you inherited a large sum of money
and the day after you got that money wave after wave of financial investors started
showing up at your door knocking on your door trying to convince you to let them
tell you how to invest your money would you hire any of them I don't know maybe you would if you
indulge that door-to-door Roofing salesman by letting him or her get on your roof inspect your
roof convince you to sign their paperwork let them work with your insurance company
Etc et cetera Etc you have no idea who you've just hired you haven't been able to do your
research you haven't you don't even know if you should file a claim you have no idea whether your
roof really does need to be replaced you don't know any of those things now don't get me wrong
some roofing companies that go door to door are ethical they are honest but some of them aren't
and my point is you don't know which is which at that point at that point you have no idea
whether or not that person is going to scam you or whether it's going to do a good job for you
and here's the other kicker too this can be really tempting because oftentimes the door-to-door guys
will even offer to pay your deductible hey if I need to save money having somebody pay
my deductible that sounds like a great idea but it also may be illegal in your state so
opinion time would I recommend that you use a door-to-door roofer to do your roof replacement
in order for you to save money generally speaking no I would not recommend that because the chances
of you getting scammed that way are fairly high so you could actually end up losing thousands of
dollars that way number five hire a roofer that uses a cheap shingle hey you're going to save
money if you use a shingle that doesn't cost as much right well there's a reason that the shingle
doesn't cost as much usually it's because the manufacturing processes faulty and the shingles
don't hold up as well maybe the shingles aren't as thick and so therefore they're not going to last
you as long there's one single manufacturer well one specifically that has a terrible reputation
for quality of their shingles now there are some other manufacturers who I don't really care for
the quality of their shingles either and we do get asked about those shingles and so we try to
steer them away from that so opinion time would I recommend that you use a cheaper shingle in order
to save money no I wouldn't probably in except for unless maybe you're selling your house and
you're trying to do that so that you can just get out of the house or something but even then
then you're giving the person who's buying your house a shingle that's not going to be that great
so no generally speaking I would not recommend that you use a cheaper shingle in order to save
money number six buy the materials yourself and hire a roofer just for the labor now why would
somebody want to do this well because typically if a roofer is going to provide the materials for you
and do the labor that roofer is going to charge profit on both of those things the labor and the
materials so if you buy the materials then you're saving yourself hundreds maybe even thousands of
dollars of of that profit that the roofer would normally be charging you opinion time would I
recommend that you try to buy the materials and find a roofer to do just the labor for you
well maybe that's kind of one of those sensitive topics right because it can be challenging to find
a roofer who will only want to provide the labor for you and not want to provide the materials as
well the reason being is because the time that he's going to invest into the project
is going to be pretty much the same whether he's buying the materials or not buying the
materials so finding roofer is going to want to forego the profit that he's going to be
making on the materials can be a challenge I mean that's how business works right so you'd
basically be asking the roofer to kind of do the same amount of work for much less money the other
thing is the type of roofer that you're going to find who would be probably willing to do that
may not be the kind of roofer that you'd want to have on your property he may not have the type
of insurance that he needs to protect you he may not be licensed so that's why I say
would I recommend that you do that maybe probably not number seven you could do it yourself all the
shingles from all the manufacturers pretty much have the installation instructions printed right
on the package and so if you're handy you can follow instructions you could do it yourself
especially if your roof isn't very complicated you know if it's not high if it's not steep if it's
not real cut up and you're up for the challenge of doing it like I say you could save yourself
thousands of dollars by doing it yourself opinion time would I recommend doing it yourself in order
to save money yes maybe several cautions to Think Through first of all it's dangerous being up on a
ladder being up on a roof doing that kind of work is inherently dangerous if you're comfortable with
it go for it if you're nervous about it you may want to think twice second if you do it wrong and
it fails inspection if you have it inspected by your local jurisdiction you have to fix it then
you have to have them come back and reinspect it third if you do it yourself and then you go
to sell your house at some point in the future and they know that there's a new roof on there
but there's no permit pulled for it you may have to retroactively have a permit pulled
for it and have somebody come out and inspect it it just could cause problems in the sale of your
house not saying that it will it may not but it could fourth there won't be any workmanship
warranty on it therefore if like I say something is installed incorrectly there's nobody that you
can call who's going to come back and fix it for you for free you're going to have to fix
it also you're going to want to check with the manufacturer and find out if you do it yourself
is there going to be a manufacturer's warranty on it too or are you foregoing having any warranty
on the actual product so my final caution on this is if you decide to do it yourself
offer a roofing contractor a licensed roofing contractor you know 250 300 dollars whatever to
come inspect the job as you're doing it so like a mid-roof inspection and then a final inspection
if you're going to do it yourself have somebody check it out for you to make sure that it's done
correctly don't count on your local jurisdictions inspectors to give you an inspection that is going
to tell you whether or not it's done correctly usually code requirements that's the bare minimum
you want somebody that's going to look at it and tell you whether it's done correctly hey you hung
in there for the whole video I really appreciate that and in fact I think you're going to like this
video right here and until our next walk in the park I'm Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing