A homeowner in the Rio Grande Valley asked us for a roof replacement quote. We came out, spent forty-five minutes walking the job, and priced it at $17,000. A few days later he called and said, honestly, I want to work with you, but I got another quote for $11,000. Can you do anything on the price?
He did something most homeowners never do: he sent us the other quote. That is the only reason this article exists, because the $6,000 gap had almost nothing to do with profit and everything to do with what was on the material list.
“30-year shingle” is a category, not a product
Both quotes said 30-year shingle. That sounds like the same roof. It is not. Owens Corning sells several architectural shingles that all qualify as 30-year, at meaningfully different prices. Oakridge is the entry-level one. Duration is not the same product.
Before we even opened his quote we guessed it said Oakridge. It did. That single line accounts for a large part of the difference, and nothing on the page would have told him unless he knew to ask for the product name rather than the warranty length.
What goes on the hips and ridges
This is the one that costs homeowners the most, and almost nobody checks it.
The caps that run along the hips and ridges of your roof should be a purpose-made hip-and-ridge shingle. The cheaper quote specified a 25-year three-tab shingle instead. That shingle is designed to lie flat. To use it on a ridge, a crew cuts it into three pieces and bends each one over the corner.
Bending it cracks the asphalt that holds the granules on. The granules come loose, and those caps fade years before the rest of the roof. On a dark roof you can often spot it from the street after five to seven years: a pale line running along every ridge. It is also a 25-year product sitting on a roof sold as 30-year.
Costs moved off the quote
The other company’s quote told the homeowner to pay the engineer directly, and to pay for the permit himself. Those are real costs on any permitted roof replacement. Moving them off the quote does not remove them from the project; it removes them from the number you compare.
Ours included engineering, the permit, and an allowance for replacing rotted wood. Theirs did not, and it also noted that rotted wood would be billed as an extra once the roof was open — which, on a roof that needs replacing, is close to a certainty.
Reused versus replaced
Read the scope for the words “remove and reinstall”. The cheaper quote reused the existing ventilation and the existing pipe boots. Pipe boots are the rubber collars around the vent pipes coming through your roof, and in Valley heat they crack and rot out. We replace them with lead, which does not corrode.
We had already shown this homeowner a photo of his own roof with those boots rotted and the wood damaged underneath. He had forgotten by the time the second quote arrived — which is not a criticism, it is just what happens when you are comparing two pieces of paper weeks later.
What happened when we priced them identically
We took the competitor’s exact line items, with their material, and ran them through our own standardised pricing. No discount, nothing removed.
We came out $275 cheaper.
The gap was never about who charges more. It was about what each quote actually included.
How to compare two roofing quotes properly
- Ask for the shingle by product name, not by warranty length.
- Ask what goes on the hips and ridges, specifically.
- Check whether the permit and any engineering costs are inside the number.
- Look for “remove and reinstall” versus “replace” on vents, pipe boots and flashing.
- Ask what happens if rotted wood is found, and what it costs.
- Ask about underlayment, starter strip and drip edge — the parts you never see.
If two quotes still differ by thousands after all that, at least you know what you are buying.
Bring us the other quote
We would rather explain the difference than lose the job to a number nobody explained. Watch the full walkthrough here: $17,000 vs $11,000 for the same roof.
A free roof inspection in McAllen takes under an hour and you get photos of whatever we find. See also roof replacement and soffit and fascia repair.
Frontline Roofing — McAllen, Mission, Edinburg and the Rio Grande Valley. Call (956) 586-5711.