Build the takeoff
Outcome: distinguish field area from accessory quantities and record measurement assumptions.
Trade & practice
A reference for roofing practice.
The rest of this site explains roofing to the people buying it. This section is for the people doing it — the arithmetic, the details, and the obligations that decide whether a job makes money and everyone goes home.
30-second answer
What does this section assume about me?
That you install roofs and do not need a shingle explained. The pages here cover what is genuinely hard: quantities that get missed, pricing arithmetic that quietly loses money, details with delayed consequences, and requirements that vary by state. Where a contractor's interest and a customer's diverge, this site says so.
Read the guides
Six pages, six different kinds of hard.
Each stands alone. Use the relevant product instructions, project documents, and qualified supervision for field decisions.
Estimating and takeoff
Measurement sources and their real error characteristics, waste as a function of geometry rather than a flat percentage, and the accessory quantities that decide whether a job makes money.
Pricing and margin
Markup and margin are not the same number, and a business run as though they are loses the difference on every job. The arithmetic, both directions, derived.
Flashing details and workmanship
Review lap direction, kickouts, step and continuous flashing, and the limits of a sealant-only repair.
Common roofing defects
A lookup catalogue with cause and prevention, and the workmanship-versus-material-versus-ageing distinction that decides warranty and claim outcomes.
Fall protection
Arrest versus restraint, anchors and what they are fastened to, clearance arithmetic, and the standards as they are actually written.
Licensing, insurance, and bonding
Four instruments that get conflated constantly, requirements that vary enormously by state, and the general-liability exclusion most contractors misunderstand.
Practice learning path
Connect quantities, details, and documentation.
For readers with roofing vocabulary and supervised field experience. Allow about 45 minutes for a first pass through takeoff, pricing, and workmanship. These lessons do not confer a credential or replace required training.
Check the pricing arithmetic
Outcome: convert between markup and margin and see what each percentage uses as its base.
Connect details to defects
Outcome: recognize the documentation and workmanship questions to resolve before concealment.
Prepare the safety conversation
Review fall-protection concepts and the limits of a general guide before consulting the applicable program and qualified supervision.
Next step
Start with the arithmetic that costs the most.
Markup and margin get conflated more than any other number in this trade, and the gap comes out of profit on every job it touches.
Read pricing and margin