Website for roofers, where the roof survey is the way in
Nobody gives their roof a thought until there is a stain spreading across a bedroom ceiling, and then everybody in the county thinks about theirs on the same wet Thursday. The week after a gale you have forty voicemails, and about six of them are re-roofs worth having.
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The week after the storm
The work is seasonal in the least helpful way there is. It arrives all at once, from people who are worried, and it arrives by telephone.
Thursday, and the wind got up on Tuesday night
Ridge tiles down across two streets, a lead flashing lifted, somebody's felt garage roof in next door's garden. The phone starts at seven and does not let up, and every caller is certain theirs is the urgent one.
Some of them are right. A slipped tile above a bedroom is a day's rain from a ceiling coming down. What you cannot do is sort forty calls into order while standing on a roof in the wind.
It all starts with getting up there
A roof cannot be priced from the pavement and it certainly cannot be priced down a phone. So every enquiry, large or small, has to turn into a survey: a ladder, an hour, sometimes a camera on a pole, and a written note of what was found.
Arranging those surveys is a second job on its own, done between calls, in a diary that lives in the van.
The biggest job on the street, priced in a text message
A full re-roof is the largest thing most households will spend on the place apart from a kitchen. They will collect three prices and show all three to somebody who knows about building work.
If yours turns up as two lines and a total, with no mention of battens, membrane, scaffolding or how many days the men are there, it loses to one that looks thought about, even when yours is the better price.
Four parts that suit a roofing firm
Picked around the survey, because on a roof nothing honest can be said before somebody has been up.
The survey is the thing people ask for
Somebody with water coming in at nine at night can ask for a survey there and then, in writing, with the address, what they have seen and roughly how old the roof is. It is in front of you at six the next morning.
That turns a morning of forty voicemails into a list with postcodes on it, which can be driven in a sensible order.
A quote the size of the job deserves
Strip and dispose, battens, membrane, tiles, ridge, flashings, scaffolding and days on site, each with its own quantity. A householder reading it can see where the money is going, and so can whichever relative they show it to.
Approval happens on that page, dated and named, and a deposit can be taken there as well if that is how you work.
Repairs carry a figure, the big work carries a survey
Gutter clearing, a slipped tile, a ridge rebedded: those can take a from-price, because they are broadly the same job each time. A re-roof cannot, and saying so plainly beats a number that has to be taken back later.
The survey itself sits in the list with a fixed price, which quietly sorts the worried from the merely curious.
Where you have been, and what you found
Roofs come back round. The garage felted five years ago, the terrace where half the ridge was replaced and the other half was given a few more winters.
With the addresses and the jobs in one register, the second visit starts from what is already known rather than from the front garden with a ladder and a guess.
How a roofing list works on a page
The names and figures are yours. What the list does is make the survey the obvious first step and keep the large work honest.
Keeping repairs, re-roofing and flat roofs in groups of their own means the storm week callers land on the right page.
What roofers ask before they start
They can ask for one in writing at any hour, with the address and a description of what they have seen. You confirm the time yourself, so nothing lands in the diary that has not been agreed.
Enquiries queue up in one place with addresses attached instead of arriving as forty voicemails. You work through them in whatever order makes sense, and none of them go missing because the line was busy.
Mark it as quoted. What the page then shows is a survey at a fixed price and repairs with a starting point, which is what a worried householder needs before making the first call.
It is a page with your name on it, set out row by row with quantities, dates and terms, and it can be read on a phone or passed to whoever else is deciding. The approval is recorded with a date against it.
The recommendation still happens. What changes is that whoever was given your name can look you up, see the work and send something the same evening rather than waiting until they catch you.
The four plans run from €49 to €199, excluding VAT. Every one of them includes hosting, SSL, nightly backups and support, with the site published on a domain that is yours. SMS is the only thing bought separately.
More trades
- Tilers and bathroom fittersPackage prices per bathroom size, with a start date.
- Balcony glazingMeasure first, a quote that survives a board meeting.
- Groundworks and excavationSite visits booked, machine hours on the quote.
- LocksmithsCallout price and hours at the top.
- Solar installersThe roof survey as the first bookable step.
- Heat pump installersHome visit, quote and service plan in one place.
- All trades
Get the roofing work on a page
Say what you take on, from gutters to a full re-roof, or point at the site you have now, and there is a first version waiting with the survey up front, your repair prices and a quote set out in rows.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From €49 to €199 a month, excluding VAT.