What a roof costs in Kalamazoo County
Roofing is priced by the square, meaning one hundred square feet of roof surface. In this county two line items decide whether a roof lasts, and both are easy to leave out of a quote without the homeowner noticing.
Start with the square count, because it is the number everything else multiplies. It is the roof surface, not the floor area. A Portage ranch with a simple shape and a walkable pitch might be twenty squares. A Richland lake house of similar internal size with gables, dormers and a wraparound porch roof can be half as much again, and every extra junction is work as well as surface. Ask for the square count before anything else and a confusing quote usually becomes legible.
Layers and disposal
Everything up there has to come off and be taken away, charged by weight. The regional permit application has boxes for one, two and three existing layers, which tells you how common layering is on the older housing in Vicksburg, Otsego and Plainwell. Ask what the quote assumes and what happens if it is wrong.
Decking, and the Michigan wrinkle
Soft, stained or delaminated decking gets cut out. What is specific to this county is where it will be: the bottom few feet, along the eaves, because that is where water has been sitting behind ice dams for years. On an older house with a history of icicles, expect eave decking to need work and agree a per sheet price in writing before the tear off starts. On the oldest housing, raise plank decking separately, because laying a continuous surface over it prices as a whole roof item and not as a repair.
The two line items that decide everything
Ice and water membrane at the eaves. A self adhering sheet under the shingles so that water backing up behind a dam meets a sealed surface. Two questions: is it included, and how far up the slope does it go. It is measured from the inside face of the exterior wall, so a shallow pitch or a deep overhang needs it carried much further than a steep roof does. Valleys want it too.
Ventilation. Intake at the soffits, exhaust at the ridge, balanced and actually connected. This is the item most often missing from a cheap quote and the one that determines whether you get ice dams for the next twenty years. Blocked soffits after an insulation top up, a ridge vent sitting over an unslotted deck, and bathroom fans terminating in the attic are the three faults found again and again. All of them are cheap to correct while the roof is off.
If a quote is silent on both of those, it is not a cheaper roof. It is a different, worse roof.
Flashing, drip edge and the rest
New metal at chimneys, sidewalls, valleys and penetrations rather than reused. Drip edge at eaves and rakes, which here does real work by keeping water out of the fascia rather than behind the gutter. Starter course and nailing pattern, which is what holds shingles down in the wind off the lake.
The permit
Fifty two dollars per structure in the City of Kalamazoo, through Community Planning and Economic Development at 150 East Crosstown Parkway on 311 or 269-337-8000, with the first fifty two dollars non refundable. Portage, Vicksburg, Allegan County and Van Buren County each have their own, so confirm which office applies to your address.
Comparing two quotes
Put them side by side and make sure they describe the same roof. Same squares. Same layers off. Same decking terms with a stated per sheet price. Ice and water membrane on both, running the same distance. The same ventilation work. New flashing on both. Same shingle grade and nailing pattern. Whatever gap survives that comparison is the firm’s own rates and running costs, which is a fair thing to choose between.
One independent southwest Michigan roofing company takes requests made here. Tear off and reroof covers the work itself.
Questions people ask
- What does the permit cost?
In the City of Kalamazoo the reroof permit is fifty two dollars per structure, and the application states that the first fifty two dollars is non refundable. Portage, Vicksburg, Allegan County and Van Buren County each run their own, so that figure is the city’s rather than the county’s.
- One quote is far cheaper. What is missing?
Check five things. Whether ice and water membrane is included and how far up it runs. Whether ventilation work is in there at all. Whether flashing is new or reused. The nailing pattern. And whether decking replacement is priced or excluded. In this county the first two are where cheap quotes are usually made cheap, and they are the two that decide whether you are doing this again in eight years.
- Does a licence make it more expensive?
A licensed company carries costs an unlicensed one does not, so there can be a difference. Michigan requires the licence for roofing work regardless, the city permit application asks for the number, and under state law an unlicensed contractor cannot sue to collect payment. The saving is not a saving.
- Is an expensive shingle worth it?
Less than people think, in this climate. The failure here is at the eaves and it is caused by ice and by attic heat, not by the shingle giving up in the middle of the field. Money spent on air sealing, ventilation, membrane and flashing buys more roof life in Kalamazoo County than the same money spent upgrading the bundle.