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Three roof quotes disagree because they are often three different jobs wearing one word. Ask what happens to the ridges, how many tiles are included, what the coating is, and what is excluded. Roof Revival Melbourne would rather lose a comparison that was never the same scope than win a number that leaves the hip untouched. The questions below make the pages comparable. The totals come after.
A lower number is not a finding until you know what it refused to do. One quote re-beds every hip. One “checks” the ridges. One never says ridge and hopes the colour will carry the meeting. Put the three documents side by side and ask the same questions of each. If a company will not answer, that silence is an answer. You are allowed to send them back to rewrite. You are allowed to discard a quote that only works while it stays vague.
Do this before you negotiate. Haggling a thin scope makes a cheaper thin scope. It does not grow the missing lines. Add the missing lines first, then see who is actually dear.
Which ridges and hips are re-bedded and repointed. Which are left. Is the old bed cut out, or is new mortar smeared over the powder. How many tiles are in the allowance, and what is the rate after that. Are valleys replaced, repaired, or excluded. Which flashings. Is solar removed, worked around, or ignored. Is the gutter in, out, or “cleaned”, and who does a clean. Two-storey access: scaffold or a hopeful ladder. If those answers differ, you do not have three prices for a restore. You have a restore, a partial, and a coat. Price them as that.
Ask for the photos each number is built on. A quote from a driveway cannot answer the ridge question except by guessing. Guessing can be labelled as a budget. It should not be labelled as a contract. The note on what changes a quote is the list of facts that move a number honestly. Use it as a checklist while you listen.
The system name, the prep, and whether a previous coat is being painted over. “Two coats of premium” is not a system. A system you can look up, on a face that has been prepared, is a system. Then ask the order. Repairs and ridges before prep before colour, or colour because the booking is Thursday. A company that coats first and “comes back to the ridges” has told you the ridges are optional. They will be optional on the day.
Ask what voids the finish. A long warranty sentence with no exclusion list is a brochure. You want to know about ponding, later trades, and a tile that was already finished. We are not putting a year count on this page. We are putting the question on the quote. Whoever looks annoyed by it is showing you that the sentence was decorative.
The decision those answers feed is roof restoration versus replacement. If one of the three quotes is actually a replacement, do not average it with two restores. Ask why that company thinks the field is finished. If they can show crumbling units or holed sheet, they may be the only adult in the set. If they cannot, they may be selling the job they prefer.
Legal name, insurance path if the price sits over the public threshold, and who returns if it leaks. Three quotes can be three subcontractors who expect you to coordinate them, or two introductions and one contractor. “We’ll project manage the trades” from a salesperson with no trade on the contract is a risk question. Ask who employs the people on the roof. Ask who holds the defect. If the answer is a group chat, you are the project manager.
Ask about the deposit and the stages. A demand for most of the money before the strip, on a large job, is a question even when you like the person. Progress that matches visible stages is boring and correct. Cash for a discount if you skip the invoice is the question that ends the meeting.
Exclusions are a gift when they are written. A valley left out on purpose can be added. A valley left out by omission will be discovered by rain. Ask each company what they saw and chose not to include. The one who can answer has been on the roof. The one who says “nothing, it’s a full job” on a roof with a rusted gutter you can see from the path has not looked, or has looked and folded the gutter into a fantasy.
Ask what would make them refuse the restore and tell you to replace. You want a company with a ceiling. A company that can restore any roof, of any condition, at a keen number, is a company that will coat a write-off. The refusal is the credential. Politeness is optional.
Then ask the timing, including weather and a house that stays occupied. A start date with no sequence is a hope. Scaffold, repairs, coat, or strip, new roof, flashings. You are checking that a program exists. You are not trying to catch anyone out. People who have a program like the question.
Make a single page with the questions down the side and the three companies across the top. Fill it from their documents, not from your memory of the call. Where a cell is blank, write back and ask. Blanks that stay blank are no. When the rows match, compare the totals. When the rows do not match, you may find the dearest quote is the only complete one, or that the cheapest is complete because your roof is a small repair and the other two invented a restore. Both discoveries are worth more than an afternoon of “can you sharpen your pencil”.
Roof Revival Melbourne will fill the column. If our column is longer because the roof needs the length, we will say that. If someone else’s column is the right short job, we should be capable of saying that too.
Sometimes the disagreement is healthy. Company A has found a flashing and priced a morning. Company B has found powdered hips and priced a restore. Company C has found snapping tiles and priced a replacement. That is not three prices. That is three diagnoses. Your job is to get A onto the roof long enough to look at the hips, and C onto the roof long enough to show you a tile that actually fails. If they still disagree with photos in hand, you have a genuine judgement call and you can choose the risk you prefer. If they never looked at the same things, you only have three flyers.
Write the diagnosis in a sentence before you look at the dollar. “Flashing only.” “Ridges and a coat, tiles sound.” “Field finished.” Then see which quote matches the sentence you believe, after you have been shown. The sentence is the protection against a smooth talker with the wrong product. Roof Revival Melbourne will put our sentence on the page. Ask the others to do the same in one line, not in a brochure.
Send suburb, storeys and two roof photos. Roof Revival Melbourne — 0426 516 883 · info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au
