How to Measure For a Roof Replacement

Replacing your roof is one of those maintenance chores that comes with being a homeowner. However, it can also be one of the most costly. In order not to have any surprises come your way, or to ensure you get the best deal for your dollars, measuring your roof before contacting a roofing company can give you a better idea of how much it will cost to replace your roof.

Things You'll Need

• measuring tape
• basic multiplying and dividing skills

Instructions

1. The first thing to start with is measuring the roof coverage surface area. This is measured in roofing squares. One roofing square is equal to 100 square feet. So an area that measures 10 feet by 10 feet equals exactly one square of roofing surface.

2. To figure out the roof coverage surface, start by measuring the house's perimeter. Do this by taking your measuring tape and measuring the length and width of the house wall. For an average rectangular house,multiply length times width to figure out the floor level area of the house in square feet. This number gives the plain level area underneath the roof in square feet. However, you need to keep in mind roof overhang in order to reduce calculation errors.

3. If your house isn't an average rectangular-shaped house and has many architectural features, you'll need to measure the length and width of each piece and then add up each measurement.

4. Next, you'll need to convert the figure of the plain level area into roofing squares. Do this by taking your raw number and dividing it by 100. For example, if your raw number is 50,000 than you have a surface area size of 500 squares for ground measurements.

5. The final number is your two-dimensional figure and now you need to convert it to a three-dimensional figure.This depends on the steepness of your roof and it's the area where many measuring mistakes are made.

6. The last step is to multiply ground level roofing squares by the roofing multiplier.

Figuring out your roof slope

1. A low slope or pitch has at least a 3:12 pitch, which means that roof rises 3 feet for every 12 feet of its base horizontal length. The approximate average multiplier is anywhere from 1.15 to 1.25 times the number of ground squares.

2. A medium slope roof falls within 6:12 - 9:12 roofing slope range. Approximate roofing multiplier: anywhere between 1.25 to 1.4 depending on the steepness of the roofing slope and how complicated or cut up our roof is. The greater the number of dormers, valleys, and endwalls, the more cut up the roof is.

3. Roofs in the high pitch/slope category have a slope that is greater than 9:12 roofing slope. Approximate roofing multiplier variance can range from 1.41 for a simple gable roof up to 1.7 for a high sloped and cut up roof.

Tips & Warnings

• The greater the number of dormers, valleys, and endwalls, the more cut up the roof is.

• The roofing multipliers are not absolute accurate measurements, as this depends on each individual roof. There are estimates based on average roofs.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish