Get three roofing quotes for the same house and you'll likely see three different totals, sometimes by thousands of dollars. That gap isn't necessarily a red flag , it usually just means each roofer is pricing a slightly different scope of work, even though the number on the page looks like it should mean the same thing everywhere. The confusion almost always starts with one word: "square."...

A roofer once put it to a homeowner this way: shingles are the cheaper decision today, steel is the cheaper decision eventually , and both of those things can be true at once. That's the honest starting point for anyone comparing the cost of steel roof versus shingles. Look only at the number on the first invoice and asphalt wins by a wide margin. Look at what each roof costs you across the...