Choosing a commercial roofing company can take some time and research. Once you’ve determined that your roof is aged and/or you’re experiencing roof leaks then it’s time to make the first step to find a contractor. Oftentimes it is advised that you get at least 3 bids and make a determination from there.

Besides price, there are at least 5 criteria that you would want to evaluate before selecting a commercial roofer including:

Review the Thoroughness of the Bids

Even if you don’t understand roof terminology, it helps to review the bid thoroughly to ensure that there appears to be due diligence when calculating the amount of parts and labor for the work of a roof repair.

A skilled commercial roofing company should be able to explain every line item on the bid and specifically how it pertains to solving your leaky roof issue. It’s especially helpful if the roofing contractor is patient, confident, and thorough in their explanation.

One additional tip is to be suspicious of even numbers. For instance, if a bid comes out to be exactly $40,000 then that may be an indication that not a lot of effort was put into the bid and they overshot the estimate and built extra “fluff” into the price.

This is not necessarily true, but even numbers do raise suspicion.

Check the Reviews from Third Party Sources

In addition to checking their reviews on Yelp and Google, we encourage everyone to read the reviews in detail to check for accuracy.

This includes the recency of the review, amount of detail, and if the reviewer has written other reviews for other businesses. We have gotten wind that there are services out there that will bolster business reviews with hundreds (or even thousands) of fake reviews from fake accounts for a nominal fee.

Doing diligent checking on each review may help you avoid a commercial roofer who pays for fake reviews (which brings integrity into question).

Along the same lines, we encourage people to reach out to their personal networks to get the “word on the street” of each bidding commercial roofer to see if they can cross reference each company. Word of mouth of a powerful way to get unbiased reviews so you can make informed decisions.

Ask About Their Track Record

Especially when considering commercial roof coatings, it helps to check if a commercial roofer has extensive experience in this area. Some questions you could ask include:

• How long have you been doing commercial roofing and roof coatings?
• How many roofs have you worked on?
• Are your crews outsourced or in-house?

From each of those answers you can further probe and ask for specifics so you can follow up. While you can ask for references, you can also simply see which clients they’ve listed on their website and call those companies up directly to ask about their experience.

This may seem like a lot of work and research, however, any type of roof work can be costly so it’s better to make an informed decision and choose the right roofing company than otherwise.

Consider Their Professionalism and Communication

You really don’t get a chance to make a second impression so it’s important to read body language carefully. Does the commercial roofer call you back on time when bidding? Are they punctual? Do they. have good follow through?

Additionally, when they talk about your roof do you feel confident that they’re able to solve your problem? Do they understand the problem and show concern for the issue? (Or are they dismissive?)

This is really where your gut instinct can kick in and the service you receive now may be the one you continue to receive throughout the working relationship. To that end, we say choose wisely.

Length of Warranty

What type of warranty of offered for the roofing repair work? A longer warranty may indicate their confidence in their product and installation which should hint at their experience.

Does the bid outline the warranty in detail and does it include labor and materials? We believe that a bid and warranty proposal written in layman’s term is useful since it is straightforward and not written in a way to confuse the reader.

Summary

While we can’t help you evaluate each contractor, we only hope to point you to useful ways to evaluate each commercial roofing company. 

Price is such an important factor, but it isn’t the only thing you should consider. You should check for the thoroughness of the bid, third party reviews, the company’s track record, consider how they present themselves, and the length of the warranty they’re selling.

We trust that by the time you compare these things it would hopefully be an easier decision to choose Armour Roof Co. for all your commercial and industrial roofing repairs. Please give us a call for a free roof evaluation at (402) 289-7869.