Three Bids, Three Different Roofs: How to Compare Commercial Roofing Proposals Apples to Apples

You asked three contractors to quote the same 40,000-square-foot flat roof in Broward County. The numbers came back at $180,000, $265,000, and $410,000. Your board wants to know why the spread is 128%. Here's the uncomfortable answer: those three companies did not bid the same job. One priced a coating over whatever's up there. One priced a partial tear-off it never explained. One priced a full replacement your roof may not need. Until you force every bidder onto the same scope, you're not comparing prices — you're comparing guesses.

After 30-plus years and more than 10 million square feet of commercial roofing across South Florida, we've been on every side of this process, including as the subcontractor other roofers bring in for spray foam and coatings. This is the checklist we'd hand any property manager or condo board before they open a single envelope.

Send every bidder the same one-page scope addendum and require these five items broken out. Any contractor who won't itemize them is telling you something.

1. The moisture survey, and the method. Infrared, capacitance scan, or core samples — you want to know how they determined what's wet, and you want the map. This matters doubly because it drives the restore-or-replace decision itself (more on that below).

2. A unit price for wet insulation removal and replacement. Not an allowance buried in the total — a per-square-foot price and a stated assumed quantity. This is the single biggest source of change orders on restoration work. If the scan says 800 square feet is wet and the bid assumed zero, you'll meet that money later, at a worse price.

3. Dry mil thickness and the warranty it buys. Ask for the specified dry film thickness, the manufacturer, and whether the warranty is a manufacturer's system warranty or just the contractor's workmanship letter. Have them state what voids it.

4. Details, itemized. Edge metal, penetrations, drains, and walls should appear as scope lines, not be presumed inside "roof coating."

5. Permit, product approvals, and inspections. In South Florida this is not boilerplate — see the next section.

The widest bid spreads happen when contractors are answering different questions. One is pricing a restoration; another is pricing a replacement; the board is comparing them as if they were the same job.

Settle the question before bids go out, and settle it with data. Our rule after three decades of moisture surveys is simple: if less than about 15% of the roof assembly is wet, restoration is on the table — remove and replace the wet areas, then coat the roof. If more than half the roof is saturated, coating it is throwing good money after bad, and we'll tell you to replace it even though replacement isn't the job we're bidding. Between those numbers, the scan and the core samples make the call.

Restoration done on the right roof runs about a third of the cost of replacement, with no tear-off, no dumpsters in the parking lot, and no tenants working under open deck. But that math only holds when the roof qualifies. A bidder who recommends restoration without a moisture survey — or replacement without one — is guessing with your reserve fund.

How many bids should a condo board or property manager get for a commercial roof project? Three is the standard, but three bids on a loose scope are worth less than two bids on a tight one. Issue a written scope with the five line items above and require bidders to price the same assumptions.

Can I require bidders to do a moisture survey before quoting? Yes, and you should — at minimum, require that the price be conditioned on one. Reputable South Florida contractors scan before they price restoration work because wet insulation is the difference between a $4 and a $7 square foot. ROOF KING includes moisture assessment in every free roof evaluation.

What's the biggest red flag in a commercial roofing bid? A round number with no breakdown. If the proposal is one paragraph and a total, you have no way to know what's included, and every gap becomes a change order after mobilization — when your leverage is gone.

---

If you're staging a bid process for a building in Broward, Miami-Dade, or Palm Beach County, start with real data instead of three competing guesses. ROOF KING has installed and restored over 10 million square feet of commercial roofing across South Florida with the same core crew for more than 20 years, and we'll scan your roof, map the moisture, and tell you honestly whether it qualifies for restoration or needs replacement — even when the answer isn't the job we'd win. Schedule your free roof assessment at 954-782-3002. Strength from above.