How much does a roof cost in Colorado in 2024?

1) Size

Size is by far the biggest variable in re-roofing a house.  Roofers tend to base their pricing on what's called squares which is just a 10'x10' square foot area.  If your roof is 2200 sq/ft. It is simply a 22 square roof.  The multipliers in the square variable are labor and shingles.   There are a few reasons why the square line item may be different on multiple quotes for the same house but the biggest one is waste factor.  Depending on the shape of your roof and how many different facets it has can be a huge variable on the waste factor calculation. 

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Another variable that can effect the square count is the actual tool used to deliver the measurements. All roofers now utilize satellite measurement tools because they are a) typically very accurate, and b) save hours compared to the old fashioned hand measurement.  There are around 15 to 20 of these satellite measurement companies and sometimes they can very small amounts which would cause a square count to differ.

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2) Existing components

There are a lot of things on a roof, most of them are not going to effect Colorado Family Roofing's price as we do not believe in up-charging these aspects. The one component on the roof that will effect pricing is decking condition and additional layers.  Removing an additional layers for us is an additional $15 per/sq in labor.  This is because it takes the crew nearly twice as long to tear of twice the amount of shingles.  Crews are paid per square, not per hour, so increases like these are charged on a per-square basis. 

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Decking condition is probably the largest add on cost that you will see.  Some roofs have decking that is no longer up to building code and the entire deck must be removed and replaced. This, as you can imagine, is very labor and material costly.  Depending on the price of OSB decking, we charge an average of $150 per square to add on new decking. 

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Other things that may be on your roof that will increase the cost slightly include: The number of bathroom fans or vents.  Kitchen vents. The existing ventilation vents (or lack of), and the number of soffit or intake vents.  We've found that 90% of Colorado homes are under or improperly ventilated, more times than not we are correcting the ventilation system. 

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We always place two layers of ice and water shield on the roof and this is not an additional cost to our homeowners.  Many roofers will upsell this product and can add as much as $20-$30 per square for it. 

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3) Type of Shingle

At Colorado Family Roofing, we don't believe in upselling a shingle that we would want on our own home. We've sorted through all of the shingle manufactures and landed on the three we like the most based on quality and warranties offered.  These are Owens Corning Duration Flex, CertainTeed Landmark Flex and GAF Armor shield II.  All of these shingles are class 4 impact resistant shingles which is a fancy way of saying they are more hail resistant (rated for a 2" diameter hail stone)

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Again, we don't upsell our shingle but if you are getting competing bids, some roofers will upsell a better shingle brand or a class 4 shingle for an additional $10 to $40 a sq.  The cost to the roofer to get a high quality class 4 shingle is only $10 to $12 a square so don't let them charge you too much for this! 

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The only exception to additional charges for an asphalt shingle are designer shingles. Designer shingles are more dimensional, they are heavier and they take more labor to install.  Designer shingles have a hefty price tag because they cost a lot more from the manufacturer.  You can expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $150 extra per square for these shingles, depending on the brand. 

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5) Roof pitch & Stories. 

The steepness (pitch) or a roof is a pretty large cost increase.  The steeper the roof is, the harder it is to work on and this will increase the labor cost.  For 7/12 and 8/12 pitched roofs we charge an extra $14 per square.  For 9/12 and 10/12 pitched roofs we charge an extra $28 per square.  For roofs 11/12 and 12/12 we charge an extra $42 per square.   

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Second and third storied roofs also come with additional challenges.  For two storied roofs we charge and extra $14 per square.  For three story roofs we charge an extra $28 per square. 

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6) Insurance or Retail 

Unfortunately, the roofing insurance market is dirty, on both sides! Insurance companies have made it extremely difficult for roofers to give a quote for replacements. In most cases, insurance will offer a horribly low and unreasonable payout. Roofers have to hire a supplementer who uses an antiquated system called Xactimate to create a ridiculously hard to read and understand estimate using the software that is most likely going to be accepted by the insurance company. The software costs a lot of money and requires a large amount of training.  The software is also very limited. The pricing is automated and standardized so the supplementer has to find each and every line item that is applicable to the claim and there are thousands to choose from.  Its a horribly inefficient process.  Insurance adjusters are also (often) very slow and very difficult to communicate with. It is not unheard of for us to call an adjuster over 30 times without a response.  All of this causes bloating of costs.  

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Roofers are not innocent either. I have been at roofing conferences where roofers will openly brag about having a $20,000 claim that they got paid $40,000 on by hiring a lawyer every time they get a claim, no matter the initial payout or if the claim was a fair price.

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Our issue with insurance is this:  Because insurance typically comes in five to seven thousand less than a reasonable quote and they typically red-line the majority of our supplement, we have to add every component in the Xactimate software line items that we can think of to try and get insurance to get anywhere close to our initial estimate.  Our company ONLY adds line items we will actually be installing where as some of our competitors will add every line item they think they could win in a court room, regardless if that is a part of their roofing system.  However, because the software sets the price, not us, sometimes our Xactimate estimate will be higher than what our original quote would have been.  Its a terrible system, but until it changes, it is the system we are forced to work with.  We could write an entire essay on this topic but the long story short is insurance or non-insurance will effect the price of a roof. Sometimes we have to settle for $5,000 less than our original quote. Sometimes we end up $5,000 higher. It is extremely random depending on the particular adjuster working the claim...Which is the exact opposite of what the intention was when they implemented Xactimate, but we digress. 

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The good news is, Colorado Family Roofing will work directly with your insurance and you will not pay more than we can negotiate, even if it is less than our quote. 

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How Much Does an Asphalt Shingle Roof Cost in Colorado in 2024?

We've built an estimate tool to give you a real time estimate.  Please keep in mind this is an estiamte and does not include things we can not see such as multiple layers and roof accessories, but it should give you a decently close estimate as to what your roof will cost.

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