If you are getting quotes for a re-roof in Vancouver, you have probably noticed that three bids for the same house can look nothing alike. That is not always a sign that someone is overcharging. More often the bids describe different work, and the cheapest one is the one that left something out.
Here is what actually moves the number, in roughly the order it matters, and what to look for on the page so you can compare estimates that are describing the same job.
Roof area is not house square footage
The single biggest driver is how much roof there is, and that is not the number on your tax record. A 2,000 square foot single-story ranch has far more roof than a 2,000 square foot two-story colonial, because the ranch spreads its floor plan out under one roof plane and the colonial stacks it.
Roofers measure in squares. One square is 100 square feet of roof surface. A crew measures the actual planes, adds the waste factor for cuts at hips and valleys, and quotes from that. If an estimate does not tell you how many squares it is based on, you cannot compare it to anything.
Pitch changes the labor, not just the material
A walkable roof and a steep roof use similar amounts of shingle and completely different amounts of labor. Past roughly 7/12, the crew is working on staging and harnesses instead of walking the deck, everything moves slower, and tear-off debris has to be controlled rather than simply swept down.
Clark County has plenty of both. The hillside neighborhoods in Camas and Felida have steep-pitch custom homes where this is the dominant cost factor. The flatter tract housing in Orchards and Salmon Creek usually is not affected.
How many layers are coming off
Washington allows a limited number of shingle layers, and older Clark County homes sometimes have two. Tearing off two layers is not double the work of one, but it is meaningfully more: more labor, more dump weight, more disposal fees. Disposal is charged by weight, and a second layer of saturated old composition is heavy.
Ask directly: is this quote a tear-off or an overlay, and how many layers do you expect to find? An overlay is cheaper today and costs more over the life of the roof, because the new shingles sit on an uneven surface and nobody has looked at the decking underneath.
What is under the shingles
This is the line item that turns a predictable job into a variable one, and it is the reason honest estimates include a decking allowance rather than a flat number.
Nobody knows the condition of the plywood until the old roof is off. In the Pacific Northwest the usual finds are soft decking around chimneys and skylights, rot at the eaves where gutters have been overflowing for years, and delaminated sheets under a north-facing slope that held moss. A good estimate states the per-sheet replacement rate up front so that if the crew finds eight bad sheets, you already know what that costs and it is not a renegotiation from the roof.
If a quote has no decking provision at all, that cost has not gone away. It has just been deferred to a conversation you will have on day two.
Ventilation is part of the roof, not an upgrade
Most Pacific Northwest roofs that fail early did not fail because the shingles wore out. They failed because the attic underneath was under-ventilated and held moisture against the underside of the deck through eight months of wet weather.
If your existing roof has moss on the north slopes, staining on the attic sheathing, or a history of ice at the eaves, the ventilation is part of the problem and replacing the shingles without addressing it buys you a roof that will age exactly the way the last one did. Balanced intake at the soffit and exhaust at the ridge is not a line item to shop out of the bid. We cover why in roof and attic ventilation in Pacific Northwest homes.
The shingle line you pick
Material is a smaller share of the total than most homeowners expect, and the spread between a mid-grade architectural shingle and a heavy-duty wind-rated line is smaller than the spread between two crews’ labor.
That said, the choice matters for how long the roof lasts here. Our comparison of architectural versus 3-tab shingles covers why 3-tab has largely disappeared from PNW re-roofs, and CertainTeed versus Malarkey versus GAF covers the manufacturer differences that actually show up in this climate.
The things that quietly separate two bids
When two estimates differ and you cannot see why, it is usually one of these:
- Underlayment. Synthetic versus felt, and how much ice-and-water shield goes in the valleys and at the eaves.
- Flashing. Whether the chimney, wall transitions and skylights are getting new flashing or the old flashing is being reused. Reused flashing is where the next leak comes from. See roof flashing and where leaks actually start.
- Permit. Clark County and the incorporated cities require a permit for a re-roof. It should be on the estimate.
- Warranty registration. Manufacturer system warranties only apply if the installer is certified and registers the job. If nobody registers it, you have the shingle warranty and not the system warranty.
- Cleanup. Magnetic sweep for nails, and what happens to the landscaping under the eaves.
Why we do not publish a price per square
Because the number would be wrong for most readers, and a wrong number is worse than none. A steep two-layer tear-off in the Camas hills and a single-layer walkable roof in Hazel Dell are different jobs, and quoting either as “the Vancouver price” would mislead whoever does not match it.
What we do on every roof replacement instead is measure your roof, tell you how many squares it is, state the decking rate before we start, and put the ventilation and flashing scope in writing. That is a number you can hold us to and compare against anyone else’s.
How much does it cost to replace a 2000 sq ft roof with shingles?
The honest answer is that 2,000 square feet of house is not 2,000 square feet of roof, which is why the question rarely has a single number behind it. A 2,000 sq ft footprint with a simple gable at 4/12 might measure 22 squares of roof. The same footprint with dormers, a 9/12 pitch and a wraparound porch can measure 30 or more, and the steeper one is slower and needs more fall protection on top of the extra material.
The variables that actually move it, in rough order: your measured square count, the pitch, how many layers are coming off, how much decking needs replacing once it is open, and whether the ventilation and flashing are being brought up to standard or reused. Get those five in writing from every bidder and the quotes become comparable.
What is the 25% rule for roofing?
It is an insurance adjusting convention, not a building code. The general idea is that if more than about 25% of a roof slope is damaged, repairing it in patches stops making sense and the slope gets replaced instead. Some jurisdictions have a related code provision limiting how much of a roof can be repaired rather than replaced within a given period.
Treat it as a rule of thumb rather than a threshold you can hold anyone to. What matters more in practice is whether the damage is confined to one slope, whether the shingles still have flexibility left, and whether a repair can be color-matched to a roof that has been weathering for fifteen years. We will tell you which of those apply to yours.
Should a 20 year old roof be replaced?
Not automatically, and age alone is a poor trigger. A 20-year-old architectural shingle roof on a well-ventilated attic with no history of leaks may have several years left. A 20-year-old three-tab roof on a hot, under-ventilated attic is usually done.
The signals that matter more than the date are granule loss showing up in the gutters, curling or cupping at the edges, any slope that has already been repaired more than once, and daylight or staining visible in the attic. If you are seeing two or more of those, it is worth an inspection. If you are seeing none of them and the roof is dry, age by itself is not a reason to spend the money.
Getting a quote you can actually compare
Ask every bidder for four things in writing: the square count, whether it is a tear-off and how many layers, the per-sheet decking rate, and what happens to the flashing. If all three bids answer those, the differences between them become legible and you can choose on merit instead of on the bottom line.
Quality Master is a CertainTeed ShingleMaster and Malarkey Emerald Pro contractor, licensed in Washington (QUALIML786JF) and Oregon (CCB 243945). You can verify any Washington contractor’s license, bond and insurance yourself through the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries contractor lookup before you sign anything, and you should.