Things your roofing estimator may ask you but makes absolutely no sense:
– What do you expect out of your new roof?
– What do you think a roof should cost?
– How long do you plan on living here?
I would think I expect the roof to keep the wet stuff out of my house, like maybe snow and rain. I think the roof should cost the amount of materials plus labor and a percentage for your overhead. Plans change, figure I want the roof to last as long as possible so I do not incur any additional expenses or damages caused by leaks. The only reason I can think of for you asking this is you want to install a inferior product or do a sloppy job cause I won’t care since I am moving soon. You should also not then start talking about how the “other guys” do things. Also probably not say you cannot quote a job when that is the purpose of your visit and that it is somehow ridiculous for me to expect this out of you. Also not sure how the type of siding I have or if my roof is a normal roof applies and why you did not bother to look for yourself when you exited your vehicle and walked up to my house. Also, if you cannot give me a quote, then how can you figure this is a 15k job because of installing soffit venting. Soffit vents cost as little as $2 up to $10 for a full vinly soffit. Even figuring labor, that cost should be very minor.
Here is how I would estimate it.
Step 1, measure. This is what I did and was very generous with my rounding and waste. I came up with 16 squares.
Shingles – $150 per square
Not going with the cheap stuff
Poly Roofing paper – $50 per roll, need about 8 rolls, $400.
Ice guard, $80 per roll, I estimate about 5 rolls, but lets add another just in case, $500.
Drip edge, $75 should cover it.
Flashing, $50 nothing fancy here.
Roof nails, $100 should cover it.
Soffits, I used Owens Corning estimator and they said I needed about 174 square inches intake, which is about 8 vents, so lets figure another $100.
Ridge vent, $700
Labor, this is where I am guessing since I am not a roofer, but lets say 4 guys times 2 days at 10 hours per day, $50 per hour – $4000
Total – $8325
It was not really worth my time to have you come back to go over in detail how you could explain your $15k roofing guess when you never took out a tape measure. I don’t know why it would take longer than an hour to give me an estimate, but you took an hour just talking non-sense. This is after all what you do for a living.