Roofing materials calculator allows you to quickly estimate your roof size and roofing materials and roof prices required to install a new roof. To calculate your roof, and materials cost, simply plug in your roof dimensions, choose a roof type, roof pitch, and your will get roofing materials cost for 30-year asphalt roofing shingles.
Roofing Materials Calculator prices were last updated on March 13, 2012 to reflect price increases of 2011 (roofing materials price increase). Current roofing prices are about the same.
Calculate roofing materials and prices now:
Roof calculation results: Roof size, list of roofing materials along with up-to date prices for each item on the roofing materials list. Currently we support 3 types of roofing material, that any homeowner can easily purchase themselves: Asphalt Shingles – 3 tad and architectural shingles and rubber roofing for mansard roofs.
Note – the total price above includes Ice & Water Shield, Double coverage of 30 lb. felt underlayment, and “official” Ridge Cap Shingles. If in your area Ice & Water and double felt coverage is not required, you can subtract that from the total roof price. Also, many roofers will use color matching 3-tab shingles instead of ridge / hip cap.
Although 3-tab shingles are substantially cheaper compared to ridge cap shingles and have more ln. ft. coverage per bundle, using ridge cap shingles is often required by roof shingles manufacturers for a premium warranty.
How to use Roofing Materials Calculator
To get accurate roof size and roofing materials cost, you will need to measure your roof from the ground, and add the overhangs (if any) to the total roof size. Next you will need to estimate or measure the roof pitch (slope of your roof). Refer to roof measuring guide for step by step instruction on how to measure your roof, and roof pitch.
Plug in the roof dimensions and roof pitch into the calculator. Select one of the appropriate roof types – Gable Roof, Hip roof or a Mansard Roof (see diagram below to properly identify your roof type).
We need to mention that at this time, our roofing materials calculator can only calculate roof area of rectangular-shaped roofs, without valleys or dormers. Although many roofs have irregular shapes, as well as dormers / valleys, it is impossible to account for every roof shape within the scope of this calculator. Therefore, we recommend that if your roof is rather cut up or has irregular shape, use a factor multiplier (roof difficulty setting in the calculator) for a more accurate estimation of irregular shaped roofs and roofing materials calculation.
How Roofing Materials Prices are Calculated:
The calculation results of the roofing materials calculator include the roof size in square feet and a detailed list of roofing materials needed to install a new roof. These roofing materials include the following:
- Roofing Shingles – price per square (100 sq. ft.) – three bundles of shingle in one square
- Roofing Underlayment – 30 lb. felt and Ice and Water Shield along the roof eaves
- Drip Edge
- Miscellaneous accessories – nails, pipe boots, step flashing (for chimney flashing), roofing caulking
- Ridge Vent
- Ridge cap shingles
- 3-tab shingles for starter course
All of these roofing prices are based on what national building materials retailers such as Lowe’s and Home Depot charge for roofing materials. As a side-note, although most roofing contractors buy their roofing materials at roofing supply places, the prices are virtually the same, and in some case, Home Depot’s price on their GAF Timberline architectural asphalt shingles is lower than most roof supply place.
Roofing Materials Prices will be provided for the following types of asphalt shingles: Three tab asphalts shingles (25-years shingle), 30 year common architectural shingles, and a 50-year asphalt shingles. We skipped the 40 year shingle on purpose, as there isn’t much of a price difference between 40 and 50 years architecturals, hence we recommend that if you go for a thicker roofing material, choose the 50 year one.
All roofing materials prices are averaged among 4 major US/Canada manufacturers of asphalt roofing shingles. We also added a waste factor for each type of roof:
Gable roof waste factor is 5 percent. Hip roof waste factor is 7.5 percent and Mansard roof waste factor is also 7.5 percent. However, since all mansard roofs have a flat roof in the center and often windows along the mansard side, we will adjust the waste factor for mansard roofs at a later time as well as add an option in the calculator to choose the number of windows on a mansard roof.
I have a chance to help a friend of NY, and I live in Guatemala Central America, I’m an engineer ,,
Help me to read the plans of an example i have of roofing estimation
let me know a e-mail address to send you the plans
regards
Emerson
Emerson
6 Apr 11 at 11:07 am
Your calculator was very helpful and made estimating easy and fast. Thank you.
Jay
4 Jun 11 at 10:13 am
Can u please tell me how many square feet of cap I need.
Joel Eberth
13 Sep 11 at 6:18 pm
@ Joel
That would depend on how many feet of ridge or hip your roof has. You can either buy actual ridge cap, or 3-tab asphalt shingles, cut them in 3 pieces and use as ridge cap – this way is much cheaper, and works just fine.
admin
6 Oct 11 at 12:08 pm
No where on your site is there a DATE. The calculator is a neat ball-park estimator but I worry about how up-to-date your material prices are on THIS date; 12 OCT 2011???
Jim Stanton
12 Oct 11 at 2:46 pm
a gable has 10 % waste Hip 15%
im a contractor and have done some 3000 roofs this type of misleading information makes ins adjusters a royal pain to deal with please see nrca website thanks Guys
Dave mn
17 Nov 11 at 12:47 pm
Hi Dave,
I’ve updated the waste factor for both gable and hip roof types. I installed mostly metal roofing, where waste factors are WAY different, and really depend on the type of roofing panels, and then on the house itself. In my experience I did not have that much waste with asphalt shingles, but then I only installed a handful.
Thanks for letting me know.
admin
13 Mar 12 at 9:17 pm
Hi Jim,
This calculator is based on prices (at the moment) from Aug / Sep. of 2011, when we had last major roofing materials price increase, when oil “went up” past $100 / barrel.
At that time GAF 30 year / “lifetime” laminates were about $33-34 / bundle or just about $100 per sq. This is used as the base price for materials in our calculator. All additional materials and accessories are also up to date.
Although it’s been 6 months since then, we did not have any major price hikes – only normal fluctuations in roofing prices. Not that oil is back up above $100 and roofing suppliers are sending out price increase notices to contractor (which is normal for Spring), I will watch the latest developments and update the calculator as needed.
PS – at the time you posted your comment – I used $28 per bundle prices from 2010, and slightly lower accessories prices. The calculator software was updated later.
PS2 – I’ve posted an article back in July, about local roofing suppliers bumping up their prices – at that time Landmarks were $32.45, and were scheduled (per Harvey’s commercial roofing salesman) to go up 7-9% for roof shingles and accessories – that is about $35 per bundle / $105 per square in July / Aug. Therefore, our calculator is right on the target… even couple of bucks lower – here is the story I posted on Jul. 25, 2011 – http://www.roofingmaterialscalculator.org/roofing-prices-increase.php
From now on, I will make sure to display the dates as they relate to prices increases on the main page of the site.
admin
13 Mar 12 at 10:33 pm