What should a roof estimate include here in Minneapolis?

Scope And Squares

An estimate for a Minneapolis bungalow or foursquare should open with the roof measured in squares, tied to an actual measurement rather than a guess pulled from the street. That figure sets material quantities and should state whether the job is a tear-off down to decking or a layer added over what is already there, since older homes near Kingfield or Tangletown sometimes carry more than one layer already.

Underlayment should be named on the page, usually synthetic underlayment, with a separate line for leak barrier at eaves and valleys, where meltwater backs up under shingles during a Minnesota winter. Drip edge along the roof perimeter belongs on the list too. Skipping these details leaves a homeowner unable to compare one bid against another on anything but the bottom number.

Flashing, Boots, And Ridge

Step flashing at chimneys and dormer walls, plus new pipe boots at every vent, should be written in as their own items rather than folded into a lump price. Rubber boot gaskets dry out and crack over a run of hot summers and hard freezes, and reused flashing around a chimney on a Longfellow or Seward two-story is a common source of a slow leak nobody notices until the ceiling stains.

Ridge treatment is the third item in this group and the one most often left vague. A written estimate should say whether the ridge gets a ridge vent cut in or a solid cap, and which product, because those are two different jobs and two different prices. If ventilation is part of the plan, the intake side belongs in writing too: soffit vents cleared, baffles installed, or nothing. An estimate that says reroof house and nothing about ventilation is leaving out the thing that decides whether the new shingles last their rated years or get cooked from below.

Decking, Permit, Payment

Decking is the line that cannot be a fixed number, and a good estimate says so honestly. Nobody knows how much sheathing has gone soft until the old roof is off, so the correct treatment is an allowance: a per-sheet or per-board price written in advance, so replacing four panels costs four times a number you already agreed to rather than whatever gets quoted mid-job. On an older Minneapolis house, expect some. Ice dams have been backing water up along the eaves for years, and the eaves are where nobody could see it.

The permit and the payment terms are the other two items worth reading closely. Minneapolis requires a permit for roofing work, so the estimate should name who is pulling it and whether the fee is included or billed separately, because the permit holder of record is the one responsible for scheduling inspections and closing the job out. On payment, a deposit larger than roughly a third of the contract is worth questioning, and the final payment should be tied to the punch list being cleared rather than to the last shingle going on. Ask for a lien waiver at final payment too.