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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

> new roof runs between 5-10k,

That is incredibly cheap if so. That would be a roof on a small barn around here.

If you shop around it's abundantly clear that the price of a new roof varies wildly. Some of it is materials. The guy offering 50 year warranty GAF super-premium install who spots loads of potential problems up front and factors them into the cost is going to run much higher. The guy who is just going to hire some rando non-english speaking guys from the 7-11 and toss on the cheapest possible materials without concern about the underlying structure is going to be like a 1/4 of that price.

$5-10k on a median sized single family home is the latter, especially if you're closer to the $5k mark. It is likely that you will have problems with the roof after it is installed, and the warranty is going to be garbage.

> The guy who is just going to hire some rando non-english speaking guys from the 7-11 and toss on the cheapest possible materials without concern about the underlying structure is going to be like a 1/4 of that price.

You’ve met my guy Serge! He’s actually quite good and I’ve used him on two different houses. He probably has twice the experience of the super premium guy in town.

It’s mostly nailing rocky tar sheets to wood, the guy who has done it a billion times (literally?) sometimes might be the better choice over the guy who bought into an exclusive contract with super premium company and went to their special school for the special product.

They might be good, they might not. It's a luck of the draw when you are hiring the guys just standing on the street corner the morning of the install.

Contractors that have their own dedicated install crews cost more, but are much more reliable.

> Who is going to hire some rando non-english speaking guys from the 7-11

You know you didn't have to put non-english speaking in there, right? Totally unnecessary and shows potential racial bias.

(I'm not perfect either, and it bugs me when I say stuff like that too.)

Rolling my eyes here, bud. You’re missing the forest for the non-PC tree.

I met someone who could have been described as a “non-English-speaking roofer.” (Not Latino, fwiw.) He says he was essentially enslaved by the guy running the contracting company, and he had no recourse as no one spoke his language.

That’s the real issue, not phrasing quibbles

I think a case could be made in some situations that if your employees don't speak English and you don't speak whatever language they speak, you may get poorer construction outcomes. Even if the employees are experiences and smart.

Seems pretty normal where I live. Shingles are like $1/square foot but the labor costs of course vary wildly depending on location.

My last house was a 1400sqft cape. Removal of 2 layers of shingles, building a cricket next to the chimney, new lead flashing around the chimney was $7k. I got quote from multiple contractors for roughly the same price. It really depends on the amount of roof.

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