Count the Squares Before You Price the Roof

Module 10 · Estimating & Takeoff · Play 1 of 5

The problem in one breath

You price the roof off a drive-by and a feel for what a house that size usually runs. Then the material comes up short on day two, or two pallets go back on the truck, and the profit you thought you bid disappears into a number nobody ever actually measured.

Why it happens

Measuring gets treated as the thing you do on the way to the real work, which everybody thinks is the price. So it happens fast, in your head, standing in the driveway of a roof you already decided was "about thirty squares." Nothing gets written down, so nothing can be checked later. The bid, the material order and the crew's day end up running off three separate guesses that never met. And when the job runs long or short, there's nothing to look back at — you just know it hurt.

The play

Measuring is its own job. It takes twenty minutes and it runs the same way every time.

Measure the footprint on the ground, plane by plane. Work in flat rectangles — the main run, the garage, the porch, each dormer — and write a length and a width next to every one. Measure to the drip edge, not to the wall: a foot of overhang all the way around a 56 by 30 house is another 176 square feet of footprint — closer to 200 of actual roof once the pitch goes on it — that you'd never have bought. Ground measurements, a wheel, a tape, a laser: use whatever you trust, but take them on the ground, not up the slope — the sheet adds the pitch itself, so a number taped on the roof gets the slope counted twice and you over-order. (A triangle: use half its base as the length.)
Turn flat feet into roof feet using the pitch. A roof covers more surface than its footprint, and the steeper it runs the more it covers. The pitch factor is what you multiply flat area by to get the real surface. That's geometry, not opinion, and the takeoff sheet lists the common pitches so you can look yours up: a 4/12 adds about 5½%, a 10/12 about 30%. Read the pitch, don't eyeball it: hold a level out from the roof face, mark twelve inches along it, and measure straight down to the shingles — that drop in inches is your rise. Do it on every plane that looks different. Skip this step on a steep roof and you'll be short by squares, not by feet.
Add the planes up and divide by 100. A square is 100 square feet of roof. That division is the whole mystery. Now you have a squares number that came from measurements, and you could hand the paper to somebody else and have them get the same answer.
Measure the edges too — a quarter of your material is sold by the foot. Walk the perimeter and log linear feet of eave, rake, ridge, hip and valley. Starter, drip edge, ridge cap, ice-and-water and valley metal all come off those numbers, never off squares — so put your price per foot in next to them and let the sheet cost them out, or your material number is short on every roof. Roofs that come up light almost always came up light here.
One sheet per job, and everybody works off it. The bid, the material order and the foreman's morning all read the same squares. When a number changes, it changes in one place. That single habit kills more short deliveries than any supplier phone call ever will.

Do this this week

Take one roof you already sold and installed. Measure it properly on the takeoff sheet — planes, pitch, edges, the whole thing. Then set those squares next to what you actually ordered and what you actually billed. Whatever gap opens up is the gap you've been carrying on every roof like it.

The tool

Get the sheet Get the card file

Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice. Grab it on the phone now — it’ll be waiting on the computer at the shop.

the-takeoff-sheet.xlsx — the takeoff sheet, and a measure card for the truck. One job per sheet, five blocks worked in order: your shop's numbers, this roof's planes and layers, the edge feet with your price per foot against them. Then it works out squares, waste, bundles, hours and dump, and hands you three numbers — materials, labor and dump — that drop straight into the job-cost sheet in M6-06, which turns them into the price. An example job is filled in; type over it. See the sheet notes below for what feeds what. Print the card below for the truck.

  THE MEASURE CARD — do not leave the driveway without these

  ROOF PLANES        flat length x flat width, on the GROUND, drip edge to drip edge —
                     the sheet adds the pitch, so never measure up the slope
  [ ] main run       [ ] garage      [ ] porch/lean-to
  [ ] dormers        [ ] additions   [ ] anything you can't see from the street

  PITCH              level out, 12 inches along, measure the drop:  ___ /12   (each plane)
  LAYERS             counted at the eave or a vent:  ___

  EDGES (linear feet — this is where material hides)
  [ ] eave ____   [ ] rake ____   [ ] ridge ____   [ ] hip ____   [ ] valley ____

  COUNT THEM (the carrier's estimate lists these one by one)
  pipe boots ___   vents ___   skylights ___   chimneys ___

  ALSO NOTE
  [ ] where the dumpster goes               [ ] stories & access
  [ ] anything rotten you can already see    [ ] low-slope section? (different roof, different bid)

  The measurements go on the takeoff sheet. The counts and the notes stay with the bid file —
  you need them for the deck line and for checking the carrier's estimate.

If your crew is 1099

Nothing to adjust — the takeoff is the owner's or the estimator's work, done before anybody's on the job. If you pay a sub foreman to measure a roof for you, you're buying a number from him, not telling him how to run his men.

M10-01 · Count the Squares Before You Price the Roof — Roofer MBA, https://roofermba.com/plays/estimating/count-the-squares

The sheet notes

How the sheet works — the columns and the formulas

The columns, the formulas behind them, and the judgment calls — so you can rebuild it by hand if you ever need to.

What it does

One roof per sheet, and it prices a shingle roof — low-slope and commercial systems sell in different units, so don't run them through it. The sheet is five blocks and you work them in order: your shop's numbers, this roof, the edges, what it comes to, and the hand-off. Everything you type comes before anything the sheet works out, so you never carry a number before its inputs exist.

Out the bottom come the three dollar figures a price is built on — materials, labor and dump — and they drop straight onto the job-cost sheet in M6-06, which adds your overhead and turns them into the price you charge. Every colored cell is an example; type over it. Yellow means a number you set once a season, cream means it belongs to this roof.

How to use it

Block 1 — set your shop's numbers once (B7–B13, yellow). Waste, bundles per square, what a square of field material costs you, your two crew-hour rates, your loaded hourly cost, and your dump cost per layer. These change once a season, not once a job. So do the five prices per foot in block 3.
Block 2 — this roof (B16, B17, and rows 20–27, cream). Type the layers to tear off, counted on the ladder, and any extra crew hours the size of the roof doesn't explain — steep, two-story, a long carry, a cut-up roof. Then measure plane by plane: flat length and width, taken on the ground, drip edge to drip edge, plus the rise, the 6 in a 6/12. The sheet works out the pitch factor and the real roof area for you, which is exactly why the numbers you type must not already have the slope in them — a length taped up the roof gets the pitch counted twice and you over-order. A triangular plane goes in as half its base by its depth. A plane with no pitch typed in is left out of the total, so put a rise in every row you use. Already holding a pitch-corrected area — an aerial or satellite report that gives you roof surface rather than footprint? Then don't let the sheet add the pitch again: type that area in as the length, put 1 in the width, and put 0 in the pitch column. A rise of 0 makes the factor 1.000. (Rise 12 does not — a 12/12 factor is 1.414, as the reference block at the bottom of the sheet shows.)
Block 3 — the edges (B31–B36 cream, B41–B45 yellow, C46 cream). Starter, drip edge, ridge cap, valley metal and ice-and-water are sold by the foot, never by the square. Type the six measurements; the sheet adds the two combinations you order against — drip edge feet (B37, eave + rake) and ridge cap feet (B38, ridge + hip) — and then you put your price per foot against each line. It costs them out, adds whatever you type on the anything else line (C46: boots, vents, the decking sheets you're including in the contract), and lands the total at C47, inside MATERIALS. Skip this block and your material number is short on every roof.
Block 4 — read what the roof comes to (rows 50–58). Squares, squares-with-waste, bundles, materials, the two hour lines, total hours, labor and dump. Order off the squares to order line (C51), never off bare squares. Hand the foreman the total crew hours (C56) before he starts.
Block 5 — carry the three bold numbers across (rows 61–63) to the job-cost sheet.

What flows where

From this sheet	Goes to	On the job-cost sheet
Materials $ (C53, repeated at C61) — field material plus the priced edge block at C47	Materials you type per job	Column B
Labor $ (C57, repeated at C62) — both hour rates plus your extra hours	Labor you type per job	Column C
Dump $ (C58, repeated at C63)	Dump fee you type per job	Column D
— nothing; the takeoff can't know it	Your overhead share for the job	Column E

The job-cost sheet adds those four into its true cost and prices off the margin you set there. So the takeoff answers "what does this roof cost me," and the job-cost sheet answers "what do I charge for it."

If you pay a sub crew by the square, the sheet's Labor $ is not what you'll actually pay — type the sub's price into the job-cost sheet's labor column instead, and keep the hours on this sheet for scheduling and for checking the sub's number against your own.

A job cost that isn't material, crew or disposal still has to go somewhere. The permit, an equipment rental, a sales commission: put it on the job-cost sheet — in the materials column if it belongs to this roof, in overhead if you carry it across every job — but don't let it ride for free.

The example roof here is the same job as the example row on the job-cost sheet, and its three figures land within about fifty dollars of the round numbers you see over there, so you can watch the hand-off happen without doing any arithmetic yourself. That row's "2,400 sq ft" label is the round number the job got sold under — this sheet's exact surface comes to 2,469. Match the dollars, not the label.

The cells

Cell / range	What it is
B2	Job or address. Just a label.
B7	Waste % — added to squares before you order.
B8	Bundles per square — check the wrapper; products differ.
B9	Field material cost per square $ — shingle and underlayment. Anything sold by the foot is priced in block 3.
B10	Crew hours per square — LAY. The install rate, from your own timesheets.
B11	Crew hours per square, per layer — STRIP. Kept separate because layers only multiply this one.
B12	Loaded labor cost per hour $ — his wage plus everything you pay on top of it.
B13	Dump cost per square, per layer $.
B16	Layers to tear off on this roof.
B17	Extra crew hours — steep, two-story, long carry, cut-up. Hours the roof's size doesn't explain.
A20:D27	One row per plane: name, flat length, flat width, rise (the 6 in 6/12). You type these.
E20:E27 · F20:F27 · F28	Auto: pitch factor, that plane's roof area, and the total.
B31:B36	Edge feet — eave, rake, ridge, hip, valley, ice-and-water. You type these.
B37 / B38	Auto: drip edge feet (eave + rake) and ridge cap feet (ridge + hip).
B41:B45	Your $ per foot for starter, drip edge, ridge cap, valley metal and ice-and-water.
C41:C45	Auto: each one costed out against the feet above.
C46	Anything else $ — boots, vents, the decking sheets you include in the contract. You type it.
C47	Auto: the edge + accessory total. This is the part of MATERIALS that isn't field shingle.
C50:C58	Auto: squares, squares with waste, bundles, materials, both hour lines, total hours, labor, dump.
C61:C63	Auto: the three numbers that go on the job-cost sheet.
B68:B72	The pitch factor for five common pitches, worked out live so you can check the math.

Formulas (so you can rebuild it by hand)

Pitch factor (E20, fill down): =IF(D20="","",SQRT(144+D20*D20)/12)
Plane area (F20, fill down): =IF(OR(B20="",C20="",E20=""),"",B20*C20*E20)
Total roof area (F28): =SUM(F20:F27)
Drip edge feet (B37): =B31+B32 · Ridge cap feet (B38): =B33+B34
Priced edges (C41 down): =B41*B31 starter, =B42*B37 drip edge, =B43*B38 ridge cap, =B44*B35 valley metal, =B45*B36 ice-and-water
Edge + accessory total (C47): =SUM(C41:C45)+C46
Squares (C50): =IF(F28=0,"",F28/100)
Squares to order (C51): =IF(C50="","",C50*(1+B7))
Bundles (C52): =IF(C51="","",ROUNDUP(C51*B8,0))
Materials $ (C53): =IF(C51="","",C51*B9+C47)
Laying hours (C54): =IF(C50="","",C50*B10)
Stripping hours (C55): =IF(C50="","",C50*B11*B16)
Total hours (C56): =IF(C50="","",C54+C55+B17)
Labor $ (C57): =IF(C56="","",C56*B12)
Dump $ (C58): =IF(C50="","",C50*B16*B13)
Hand-off cells (C61, C62, C63): =C53, =C57, =C58
Pitch reference (B68 down): =SQRT(144+4*4)/12, =SQRT(144+6*6)/12, and so on

Only IF, OR, SUM, SQRT and ROUNDUP are used — nothing that needs a new Excel — so it opens and computes in old Excel, Numbers and LibreOffice. Every blank-row formula guards on an empty row, so a sheet with two planes on it shows nothing in the other six. (Verified: opened and recalculated in LibreOffice — every formula computes, blank rows stay blank, and every computed figure matches the same math worked out independently by hand.)

Notes / judgment calls

The pitch factor is math, not a rule of thumb. For a rise of r over 12, the factor is the square root of (144 + r × r), divided by 12. That's why the sheet computes it instead of looking it up in a table you'd have to trust: a 6/12 comes to 1.118, so a 6/12 roof carries about 12% more surface than its footprint, and a 10/12 about 30% more.
Flat measurements in, roof measurements out. The single most expensive way to use this sheet wrong is to type in numbers you took up the slope, or an area off an aerial report that is already pitch-corrected. The sheet would then add the pitch a second time. Ground measurements only — and see step 2 above for the one right way to enter an area that already has the pitch in it.
Every number in a yellow cell is an example, not an industry figure. Waste at 15%, three bundles a square, $156 a square of field material, 1.75 laying hours a square, 0.75 stripping hours a layer, $50 an hour loaded, $16 a square a layer to dump, and every price per foot in block 3. They're there so the sheet does something the moment you open it. Yours come off your own supplier, your own timesheets and your own disposal tickets, and every one of them will be different. The example roof carries 96 feet of hip and 40 of valley, which is why its waste sits in the mid-teens rather than at the ten percent a plain gable would take (M10-02).
Labor is priced in two rates plus an override, not one number. Laying hours and stripping hours are separated because layers only multiply the stripping half, and the extra-hours cell (B17) is there so a steep two-story roof doesn't get priced like a walkable ranch. Feed the two rates from your own timesheets (M10-04) — putting an all-in strip-and-lay rate into the laying cell counts the tear-off twice.
Waste applies to field material only. You pay for the shingles you cut off and throw away; you don't pay a crew to install them, and the edge block is a straight price times the feet. So squares-with-waste drives the field half, plain squares drive the hours, and you price your own scrap into the dollars per foot before you type them.
If you cut starter or cap out of field bundles rather than buying them as their own product, the bundle count won't cover it — add those bundles by hand to your order and set the matching price per foot to zero so you don't pay for them twice.
The dump figure covers the tear-off only. It's squares × layers × your per-layer rate, which is what fills the dumpster on a normal job. It does not carry the new roof's own cut-off scrap, so on a heavy three-layer roof, or one that's all valleys, check it against a whole-dumpster count before you bid it.
Eight plane rows, deliberately. A house needing more than eight planes is a house that needs a second copy of the sheet, not a taller table — and a taller table is where these sheets stop being readable on a phone in a driveway.
The sheet ships with its numbers already saved in it, so a phone preview shows real figures; they recalculate the moment you type in it.

The one thing

Do this this week

Take it with you

Get the sheet Get the card file

One email unlocks this and every other sheet and card on the site. The plays stay free.

Same fire

You're bidding off a gut number and a guess at the squares

All the fires →

Fixed this?

Measuring the roof sets what you order. What the job actually ate is the only thing that tells you whether the waste on that takeoff was ever true.

The fire right behind it is usually The material bill came in over the bid and nobody can say why.