Restoration-first commercial roofing across Western Pennsylvania · Call 814-720-1081
Restoration-first commercial roofing across Western Pennsylvania · Call 814-720-1081
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Six criteria that actually predict how a commercial roof turns out in Western PA, in the order they matter. None of them is the price, and none of them requires you to know anything about roofing.
None of this needs you to know anything about roofing. Mark a box per bidder while vetting a commercial roofer and the differences show up on their own.
A contractor who prices a roof without walking all of it, scanning where it matters and photographing what they found is guessing, and the guess becomes your change order. This one criterion eliminates most of a shortlist.
one box per bidder
Mil thickness, treatment of wet insulation, detail work at seams and penetrations, and whether the manufacturer warranty gets registered. If those four are not in writing, there is nothing to hold anyone to.
one box per bidder
Manufacturer coverage can only be registered by an approved installer. Without it you have material that resembles a system and no manufacturer behind it.
one box per bidder
A contractor who says a roof needs replacing rather than coating, or that a roof is fine this year, is demonstrating that the recommendation is not the sales process. Ask them directly when they last told someone no.
one box per bidder
Ask who physically arrives. A warranty that has to be honored in year twelve is worth what the company standing behind it is worth, and that is harder when the crew belonged to someone else.
one box per bidder
The single most predictive question, because it cannot be answered with a brochure. A company that has thought about it answers with a process and a name.
one box per bidder
The scope is the comparable document. Prices attached to different scopes are not a comparison.
Written down, in the same order. Differences in the answers are the whole point of the exercise.
Ask for a registered warranty from a finished job with the details removed, or proof of certification. A straight answer arrives quickly.
Last, against scopes that are finally comparable. A large gap usually has a specific cause.
Three is usually enough to see the spread, and more than five tends to add noise rather than information. What matters more than the number is that you asked all of them the same questions and got the scope in writing from each.
Not by itself. Size helps with the year-twelve question and it does nothing for whether anybody walked your roof properly in Western PA. Apply the same six criteria regardless of the size of the company.
You do not need to. Ask the question, write down the answer, and compare the answers across bidders. Differences between three answers to the same question tell you a great deal without any roofing knowledge at all.
It is a real advantage if the work was good, because they know the building. It is not a reason to skip the questions. Familiarity and a written scope are not substitutes for each other.
Use it as evidence rather than as a favor. What you should be judging is what they did during it: did they walk the whole roof, did they scan, did they photograph, did they show you both numbers. What a real assessment involves is set out here.
Still not sure which of these matter most for your Western PA building? Call 814-720-1081 and ask.
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