Compare Each Roofer's Plan for the Boxes in Your Attic on Tear-Off Day

Most roof jobs in St. Louis start with a walk around the house and a look at the shingles. Few start with a look into the attic, and that is where the trouble often sits. Old holiday bins, a box of tax records, a dresser pushed against the knee wall, a ceiling fan hung from the rafters: all of it sits under the part of the house the crew is about to open. This page is for the homeowner who has two or three written bids in hand and wants to know how each roofer plans to handle what is stored up there.

Why attic storage matters on a tear-off

When the old shingles come off, the decking underneath is exposed to the sky until the new underlayment goes down. During that window, granules, nail stubs and small pieces of debris can work their way through gaps around the hatch, around plumbing stacks and along the top plates. Heavy loads moving across the attic floor can also crack ceiling drywall below, especially where the joists are spaced wide or the attic floor is only plywood laid over the insulation. A box that sits in the wrong place for two days can be dusty and still usable. A box that gets rained on through an open section of deck often is not.

Access is the other problem. Many St. Louis attics are reached through a hatch the size of a laundry basket, and the crew has to pass whatever is stored there to reach the rafters, the gable vents and the ridge. Some roofers will stack everything in one corner and cover it with a tarp. Others will ask you to empty the space before they arrive. Neither approach is wrong, but each one puts the work on a different person, and each one changes how much dust and handling your belongings take.

St. Louis adds humidity. A late-summer or spring tear-off in the metro often happens during a wet stretch, and cardboard that absorbs moisture from an open roof will sour, then mold. Paper records and photographs are usually the first things lost. If anything in the attic matters to you, the time to say so is before the crew sets up, not after the first afternoon of rain.

Roofer comparison

The useful comparison is not whether a roofer says "we will be careful." Almost every roofer says that. The useful comparison is which roofer writes down a specific step, names who does it, and says when. Set the bids side by side and look for these four things:

• Who moves the boxes, the crew or you, and whether that person is named in the proposal.
• Where the stored items go, such as a garage, a tarp on the lawn, or a room inside the house, and whether that location is on the dated schedule.
• Whether the crew covers the hatch opening, the joists they will walk on, and any light fixtures or ductwork within reach of the work.
• Whether the attic is cleared, covered or left alone on each day the roof is open, not only on day one.

A bid that answers all four is easier to hold a roofer to. A bid that answers none of them has left the attic out, which means the crew will decide on the morning of the job, and the homeowner will find out then.

Keys documents the attic before work starts, with dated photographs of each storage area and the hatch, and puts that record in the homeowner's hands with the written scope. That record is useful to you whatever the roofer ends up doing. It also gives you a baseline if a box, dish or fixture is missing later.

What it costs

Moving stored items is rarely a line on a roof bid by itself. It sits inside labor, inside a cleanup charge or inside a general protection allowance, and the amount varies with how many items there are and how far they travel. Ask each roofer whether attic protection is included in the price or is extra, and if it is extra, ask for the rate or flat fee in writing. A roofer who says "it depends" without offering a number has not finished the bid.

Covering a storage area with plastic sheeting and a drop cloth costs far less than hauling every box to a garage. The cheaper route moves the dust risk onto the belongings instead of removing it. Compare what each roofer's plan leaves exposed, not only what it charges.

If the attic has to be cleared to another room, ask how much of the moving the crew does and how much is left to you. Crew moving usually means a higher line item. Homeowner moving usually means a lower line item and a longer list of things you must finish before the first truck arrives.

What to ask

Put these questions to each roofer in writing and time the answers. A reply that names the step, the person and the day is a reply you can use.

1. Who moves items out of the attic, and do you move them, or do I?
2. Where do the items go while the roof is open, and is that location written into the schedule?
3. Which parts of the attic floor will the crew walk on, and how will the joists and drywall below be protected?
4. What covers the hatch and the stored items on a day when rain is forecast?
5. Who checks the attic at the end of each day, and who signs off that nothing is damaged or missing?
6. Is attic protection included in the total, or priced separately?

Pay attention to vague answers. "We take care of it" does not say where a box goes. A roofer who can describe the attic plan step by step has probably done it before, and that is the bid you can compare with confidence.

Before the crew arrives

Walk the attic yourself with a phone. Photograph each storage area, the hatch, the stairs or pull-down ladder, and any light fixtures or ducts you can see. Remove anything you cannot replace. Move breakable items, old photographs and electronics out of the house entirely, because rain on an open roof reaches farther than most people expect. Tell the roofer what is stored and where, so the plan on the bid matches the attic that actually exists.

Once the work starts, check the attic on the first and last day of each roof phase. Look for new dust, wet insulation, displaced boxes and any sign that the crew walked on ceiling drywall. If you see something, photograph it and send it to the roofer the same day, in writing. The photograph and its timestamp are the record you will need.