Can you share your experiences and things you wish you knew about that business before starting?
By the way this is def my favorite forum on the coli. So much info has been posted for all of us to eat.![]()
Guess I'm about to be making a ton of mistakes. Do you know what the ballpark figure for insurance is? What tools should I have on hand?Not roofing but I have a construction company that specializes in other trades, but I have physically done roofing before. A few pointers:
1) Get some experience. Start out charging bottom dollar, let the customer know upfront you are new and might mess up, but you will fix any errors, that's why the price is so cheap. The reason being NOBODY wants to teach a random person a trade anymore, and a lot of these trades there are no real schools for it. You can take a building code course but it's not going to teach how to lay the ice wrap, how to pitching shingles, how to stack clay tiles, etc etc.
2) With experience, I say (almost immediately) that you need to charge top dollar. It's better to do one job for $6K than 10 jobs for $10K. Setup, driving around, getting supplies, putting a crew together, all that is time and money.
3) Use one of those pay per lead services. Only about 5-10% of the leads are real, but those 5 -10% will cover all the expenses in marketing. Porch.com is a good one.
Guess I'm about to be making a ton of mistakes. Do you know what the ballpark figure for insurance is? What tools should I have on hand?
Good looking out Breh. I've been doing my homework. Got a lot of research.I don't know for roofing but I would check with Hiscox, they can get you setup pretty quick. For my trades it was $200 down and $60/month, of course I have a registered company and I've never had a claim, so take the numbers with a grain of salt. Always go with a million dollar liability policy, it will match/exceed what most building departments will ask for in terms of insurance. I mean for roofing you should at least know what tools you need brehBut all jokes aside at least the following:
Roofing pitchfork for removing old shingles
Claw Hammer for removing nails
Saw for cutting patch up wood for rotting rafter sections
Ladders, one 10', one 20', one 40'
Pneumatic Nailer (Nail Gun with Air Compressor)
Pancake Compressor
Magnet Broom for picking up nails off the ground/roof
That's off the top of my head. The one I can say is do your research, craigslist and harbor freight are your friend![]()