Tips for hiring a roofing contractor (Part 1 - finding the right one)

When looking for local roofers, I always recommend use 2 - 3 independent roofing contractor referral services before you make your final decision and sign a contract with the roofing company of your choice.

Why? What are the benefits of using a contractor referral services?

First of all, you benefit from their SIZE

The contractor referral services employ specialized staff who put a lot of their efforts in finding all the roofers in your area (not only those who run large advertising campaigns, not only those who occupate the exhibition centres).

Their sales people actively contact the local roofers to get them in their databases, their analysts run algorithms to rate the particular roofing companies to provide the clients (YOU) with satisfactory results. The roofing contractor referral services have prescreened and evaluated thousands of roofers and they will get you connected only with those of them who are the most relevant to your request.

Relevance in this case means (A) the distance between your home (or the site where the roofing job will be done) and the respective roofing company´s office and (B) the reliability of the respective roofing company as none of the contractor referrers is interested in dissatisfied customers (YOU) and negative advertising (YOU can provide them with being not satisfied with the work of the roofer they referred to you).

You also benefit from their KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE

There may be dozens of roofing companies in your area and all of them picture themselves as reliable, experienced and working at reasonable prices. Do you really want to spend (a lot of) your time searching for local roofing contractors, checking their reliability and addressing them with your requests? Let the referrer do the majority of the work and then, after his staff selected handful of the most relevant roofers, you CAN choose one of them. But you DON´T HAVE TO, because you have the right not to choose any of the referred roofers if you don´t like their offers.

Roof contractor referral services are FREE

The roofer referral services are free (for YOU, the customers). On the other hand, the contractors must pay certain amount to be included in their databases.

The roofers (after they paid for inclusion in the database) know that when they get a prospective client via the referrer there are 10s of other roofers in the respective location who were addressed too.

How does it work?

First of all you have to fill in a simple form, usually consisting of 10 - 20 questions, to give the contractor referral company some more details about the job site and the roofing job itself. It is important as the 3 minutes you spend filling in the form now can save you hours later talking to totally irrelevant contractors trying to sell you their totally irrelevant services.
Typical questions are e.g.:

 What kind of roofing material do you prefer (asphalt, composite, steel, cedar shingles, etc...) ? - an important info for the referrer to send you the roofers specialized and experienced in that particular roofing type;
 How many stories your house has? - necessary to find out whether ladders or scaffolding is necessary;
 What is the approximate footage of your house? - to predict the roof size;
 What is the pitch of the roof (flat, sloped, steeple)? - to find out what roofing material, underlayment or insulation should be used;
 What type of roofing do you have now? - to predict the costs of its removal/replacement;
 Are there any additional details required (vents, skylights, gutters and downspouts, weathervanes, antennas, etc...) - to evaluate the complexity of the works.

You will be also asked to submit your name, address, ZIP code and some other contact details that will be used to contact you (referral company, roofers).

Just a short recap for those who came late. When using the contractor referral service you are given following benefits:

 You will save your time (no directory searching, no blind calling here and there);
 You will save your money (no useless useless phone calls);
 The probability you miss a "hidden" (but good and cheap) roofer who doesn´t spend tons of money on his promotion is pretty low;
 You have a serious chance to get better price than if acting individually as the particular roofer will know that he´s just one of many roofers addressed by the contractor referral company;
 Roofers are reviewed and rated and number of points or stars given by homeowners is quite important decision criterion.

Ready to give it a try now? So let´s go!

But don´t forget to get back to me after getting the list of matching roofers. I still have some important advice for you.

What happens after filling in the form

After filling in the form and hitting the SEND button, the contractor referral company starts to run its algorithms to find the best roofers for you.

If the cntractor referral service needs any more information from you, they will contact you by phone or e-mail to answer their questions.

The evaluation algorithm considers parameters such as roofer´s radius of work (which is a hypothetical circle around the roofing company´s office, if your house is in that circle, you match) and the roofers´ rating.

Roofing contractor reviews and ratings

Contractors are usually rated both by referral company and the homeowners who already dealt with them.
Homeowners´ reviews are unbiased and provide you with an independent view on the particular roofing company.

Why to use more than just one roofing contractor referral service?

Don´t be afraid to use also second or third contractor referral company, it only takes another 3 minutes to fill in their form.

There are two possible scenarios if you use more contractor referral services.

1.) You get another couple of quotes, all of them are different from those offered by the first roofer referral service. In this case you just have more chances to find better and cheaper roofing company.

2.) You get another couple of quotes, some of them are the same like those offered by the first roofer referral service. In this case you have probably got the winners. If 2 or 3 referrers point at the same roofers they probably have great reputation and reach of your area.

Ready to go for the second portion?

But please then get back to Roofing Child´s Play as we have some more information for you.

Find more roofers or filter out the winners!

Click on the ROOFING & GUTTERS category in the upper right corner of the directory!