Furnish, Install or Supply: Compare the Verbs in Each Roof Bid

Open three roof bids and read only the totals, and you will miss the words that decide what you are buying. Most bids label each line with a verb. "Furnish" usually means the roofer buys the material and brings it to the site. "Install" means the crew puts it on the roof. "Supply" can mean the roofer sells you the material and you still handle the delivery, or it can mean the roofer delivers it. The same shingle can sit under three different verbs in three bids, and each verb moves a different cost and a different risk onto your side of the sheet.

This page is for a homeowner partway through the decision who needs one specific thing: a way to line up the verbs in each bid so the totals mean the same thing. It is written for a St. Louis house, where a roof is often torn off in spring or fall, sometimes after hail, and where a bundle that sits in wet weather for a week can start to stick together before anyone nails it down.

Roofer comparison

Start by copying the verb from every line onto one sheet. Put each roofer's name across the top. Down the left side, list the items that appear in nearly every roof job: tear-off, underlayment, ice and water shield, drip edge, starter, shingles, ridge cap, pipe boots, vents, flashing, dumpster, magnet sweep, and haul-away. Next to each item, write the verb the bid uses. Blank cells matter too. A missing line is not the same as a free line, and it usually means the bid is silent on who handles that work.

Look at the material verbs first. If one bid says "furnish and install" for shingles and another says "install" with a note that the homeowner will supply the bundles, those are two different contracts. In the second, you are responsible for the count, the color, the delivery date, and the condition of the bundles when they arrive. Compare those responsibilities directly, not the dollar figures alone.

Then look at the labor verbs. "Tear-off" and "remove" can describe the same work, but a bid that says "remove and dispose" has put the haul-away inside the price, while a bid that says "remove" alone may leave disposal open. Ask each roofer to say in one sentence who loads the old material, who hauls it, and where it goes. The answer should match the verb on the sheet.

Keys Roofing installs Atlas and Malarkey shingles only, so the material line on a Keys bid will name one of those two products. When you compare that bid against one from a roofer who uses a different line, check that the product names match before you compare dollars. A shingle line is a spec, not a verb, but it sits in the same sentence as the verb, and a bid that says "furnish and install shingles" without naming the line leaves you comparing two unknown products.

What it costs

A verb changes the price in two ways. The first is the obvious one: a line the roofer furnishes is priced with the material in it, and a line the homeowner supplies is priced without it. The second is less visible. When a homeowner supplies material, the bid usually carries delivery, count, and waste assumptions that the roofer will not revise. If the bundles arrive short, the crew waits, and that waiting is either billed or pushed back on the calendar.

Dumpster and haul-away lines are the next place to compare. A bin sized for a typical single-family tear-off is a line with its own price, and some bids fold it into a general cleanup figure. If one bid has a separate dumpster line and the other has none, ask where the debris goes. Disposal in the St. Louis area is not free, and a bid that leaves it out has not made the job cheaper. It has moved the cost into a later invoice.

Cold weather adds its own verb question. Shingles installed in low temperatures may need hand-sealing, and some bids name that step as a line while others assume it. In a St. Louis winter, a bid that says "install" with no cold-weather note may be assuming warm days the crew cannot count on. Ask whether the price includes extra labor if hand-sealing is needed, or whether that becomes a change order.

Keep one more point in view. A bid's total is the sum of its verbs. If a total looks low, check the verbs first. A bid that uses "install" on every line and says nothing about material, disposal, or permits may have left those items off the sheet entirely. Permit requirements depend on the municipality. St. Louis County runs its own permit desk, and the rules for a city or a neighboring county are not the same, so a bid that does not mention a permit may be silent on who pulls it and who pays the fee.

What to ask

Ask each roofer to define their verbs in writing before you pay a deposit. The question is short: "On your bid, what does furnish mean, and what does install mean, for the shingles, the underlayment, and the disposal?" A roofer who answers in one plain sentence per item is giving you something you can compare. A roofer who answers with a general statement about quality has not answered the question.

Ask who loads the material and where it will sit. If the roofer furnishes the shingles, ask when the bundles arrive, where they are staged, and who covers them if rain comes before the crew starts. If you supply the bundles, ask the roofer for the exact bundle count their bid assumes, and ask what happens if the count is short on the morning the crew arrives.

Ask who hauls the old roof and whether the bid includes the bin. Ask how long the bin stays on the property and who moves it if the job runs long. A bin that sits in a driveway for a week can crack a sprinkler head or leave tire marks, and the bid should say who owns that outcome.

Ask whether a missing line is included or excluded. A roofer who says "that is in the price" should be able to point to a line that says so. If the line is not on the sheet, ask the roofer to add it to the written bid before you choose. A verb written on every line is the most reliable way to make three quotes add up the same way.

If you want to talk through a bid before you sign, call the Keys Roofing office at (314) 220-2333. The office can walk through the verbs on a Keys bid line by line and show where each item sits on the sheet.