Roofing costs - how much has steel gone up anyway?

RumpledElf

RumpledElf

So I FINALLY got a roofing quote after waiting almost a month. It was $13,000, which includes a few metres of gutters, a small bullnose verandah, roofing for a pitched roof of about 8x4m and a skillion roof of about 8x8m, all zincalume. The whole house is about 8x12m. The quote seems a tad excessive and isn't broken down, but I guess if the price of steel has gone up a few 100% in the last few years it is reasonable.

The last reroof I got done was in 2005 on a 10x15m hip roof (ie, WAY more steel in it than this other house) and it came to $6000 for the roof and $3000 for new fascias. I was thinking it might cost $7000 for this new roof, factoring in steel rises, the roof being so much smaller and not needing any timbers, so the $13k surprised me.

I do have some other reroof quotes pending (and I've rung the guys who did my last roof too), but they are very slow and hard to get and I won't get them anytime soon, so what do you guys think of the amount I've been quoted?
 
Hi RE,

yes it does seem a lot. I guess some of the cost would be transporting those long sheets all the way to your joint. I estimate you have less than $5k worth of material so $13k is probably the sort of price you give when you have got plenty of work.

Tom
 
Hey rumpledelf,

I'm a builder and that does seem like alot. That $13k is about what i pay for a new roof of about a 20 sq house including a pretty decent verandah and all fascia and gutter and all in colorbond. Zinc is about 10% cheaper than colorbond.

You could try what i've done on my last 4 or 5 builds is get in contact with bunnings trade. They do a pre-cut roof and supply all materials which you can get on a trade account and then i pay a roofing plumber an hrly rate to fit it. I've been saving 2-3 grand per roof doing it this way.

Not sure if that's too much hassle but i thought it could be another option.
Best of luck
Morty
 
Turns out the people who did my last roof are in the area quoting this week (and sure enough, they said $13k sounds a bit steep too). They are Adelaide based but are one of those companies that does regular rounds of the far-flung areas, they just organise it so they have several jobs in a row in the same area, very sensible but means you can have quite a variable wait for work to start. The chap who gave me the high quote is a very overworked local tradie so TommyR is probably right.

At least I know what I'll be getting if I use the same company again, they were pretty good and they did fixed quotes. When they did my last roof, because the house isn't tied (I have a whole thread on that too :) ) and had spread by about 10cm - the roof was underhanging the gutters and damaging the walls - they had to extend all the trusses by a few cm and I didn't get charged for it, but I copped an awful lot of cursing and swearing from the tradies on the roof and they used my spare timber from the shed to do it!

Getting houses reroofed is fun. This will be my third. There's nothing like lying in bed at 7am and being woken up by the sound of tearing iron and then bright sunlight coming in between the ceiling boards. I gotta stop buying old houses ...
 
RumpledElf said:
So I FINALLY got a roofing quote after waiting almost a month. It was $13,000, which includes a few metres of gutters, a small bullnose verandah, roofing for a pitched roof of about 8x4m and a skillion roof of about 8x8m, all zincalume. The whole house is about 8x12m. The quote seems a tad excessive and isn't broken down, but I guess if the price of steel has gone up a few 100% in the last few years it is reasonable.

The last reroof I got done was in 2005 on a 10x15m hip roof (ie, WAY more steel in it than this other house) and it came to $6000 for the roof and $3000 for new fascias. I was thinking it might cost $7000 for this new roof, factoring in steel rises, the roof being so much smaller and not needing any timbers, so the $13k surprised me.

I do have some other reroof quotes pending (and I've rung the guys who did my last roof too), but they are very slow and hard to get and I won't get them anytime soon, so what do you guys think of the amount I've been quoted?
Click to expand...
IMHO,the price seems very high to me,material costs for that roof layout even with the bullnose setion,and the extra gutter-down-pipes would be no more than 4-5 k depending on who you bought the roof sheets-gutters screws fit off materials from,who ever quoted that job is looking at 9k profit for 3 days work..willair..
 
Speaking to a builder recently I was told that it was the reos that have gone through the roof (pardon the pun) but colorbond haven't really jacked their prices up relative to the surge in steel prices. But in the last month, commodity prices have been getting belted like an Australian opener on the sub-continent, just not sure how long it takes for prices to flow through. Steel prices are privately negotiated on a wholesale level anyway so its hard to tell how much of it is actual raw materials coming off vs vendors reducing supplies.
 
Hey asdf,

they're up substantially too... wait til' ya get your fencing materials quote! :D Don't worry I have some contacts (supply and install) for ya!

Cheers, Jodie
 
our steel costs have gone crazy which is unfortunate goiven that our houses are so steel dependent, being in a cyclonic region. what we could have sold you a year ago for $400k we wouldn't touch for less than $600k. That's not just steel to be fair, it's labour, concrete, you name it. With the AUD as it is we now have to apply 50% extra to the likes of tiles and other imported goods

to think that about 3 years ago I was trying to sell house and land there for $399k and was met with so much buyer resistance. would be lucky to buy the block for that now. Still for those that got in at $399k and are now collecting $1800 a week in rent across multiple properties - it;s a nice buffer during a recessioon!
 
I work in the Engineering industry (mining projects) and steel increases are rife due to all the south Asia development currently going on.
 
The 3rd quote came in at $8k including replacing a verandah with eaves (which I didn't discuss with the first guy so his didn't include that), all colourbond, all gutters and a fascia across the back, but not the bullnose. Much more sensible considering I was originally thinking 7k and had mentally budgetted for about that amount. Everyone who has popped past since has mumbled about how expensive bullnoses are and just to get a pressure cleaner to take the paint off and repaint it in a matching colourbond colour.

On the downside, if we go colour I have to choose a colour, and considering we have to choose benchtop and lino colours in the kitchen as well this is just too much like hard work :)
 
i work as an estimator for a builder in sydney, we have seen price of steel go up 30% over the last year.. definatly affects the bottom line on jobs that have been held up in council for that period :mad: from memory we get our colourbond roofs incl. accessories for about $75/ m2 (price will vary on roof design).. its about the same price as laying concrete roof tiles here!:eek:
 
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