Roof replacement
A central Florida roof does not fail the way northern roofs fail. It is cooked from above by sun and from below by a hot attic, rinsed daily through the summer, and salted at the coast. Replacement day is the one chance to fix all of that at once, which is why the quote matters more than the shingle brand.
What is actually being replaced
The covering is the visible part, but the work that decides how long the roof lasts happens underneath it. The deck: on houses from the fifties and sixties that can be plank rather than plywood, and any soft board should be priced per sheet in advance, because nobody knows the count until the old covering is off.
Then the underlayment, which in this climate is the real waterproofing layer. A daily summer downpour finds every shortcut, and the difference between a code-minimum felt and a sealed synthetic membrane shows up years before the shingles themselves are done.
And the ventilation. A Florida attic under afternoon sun runs far hotter than the air outside, and that heat ages the covering from below while the UV works from above. Intake at the eaves, exhaust at the ridge, and baffles that keep the insulation from choking the path: sized right, that system buys years.
Shingle, metal, or tile
The arc is mostly architectural shingle, and a good shingle roof remains the value answer. Metal has earned its place here: it sheds heat better, shrugs off the daily rain, and holds its finish against salt air longer than fasteners and flashings usually do. Tile suits some of the newer stock, at a structural price.
What matters more than the material is the match to the house. A low-pitch section behind a Bradenton ranch takes a different product than a steep gable in Lakewood Ranch, and a coastal Merritt Island roof should be quoted with stainless or coated hardware regardless of what covers it.
Reading two quotes on the same house
Two bids describing the same address can be hundreds apart per square for reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The honest quote states its layer assumption, prices decking by the sheet, names the underlayment, says whether flashings are replaced or reused, and treats ventilation as a line item rather than a footnote.
The comparison tool on this site walks through those exact points. Ten minutes with it before signing tells you more than another week of collecting bids.
What to ask every bidder
- How many shingle layers do you assume, and what if there is another?
- Florida allowed re-covering for years. A tear-off that finds a second layer is the most common reason a quote moves on day one.
- What is the price per sheet of decking?
- Nobody knows how many sheets are soft until the roof is open. Without a per-sheet rate, the largest unknown in the job is missing from the bid.
- Are the flashings replaced, or reused and sealed?
- Reused flashing is the most common reason a new roof leaks in its first year, and in salt air it is the first hardware to go.
- How will the attic be ventilated afterwards?
- Reinstalling the old vents is not an answer. A cooked attic shortens the life of whatever goes on top of it.
- 1 Ridge and exhaust — Where the attic is supposed to breathe out. Sized in 1975 on half this arc.
- 2 The shingle field — The part everyone looks at. The sun works it from above, the attic from below.
- 3 The valley — Every afternoon’s rain, funnelled into one seam.
- 4 Wall flashing — Where the garage roof meets the house. Rebuilt metal outlives the shingles; caulk does not.
- 5 The vent boot — A rubber collar on a faster clock than the roof around it. The arc’s most common leak.
- 6 Eaves, drip edge and soffit intake — The hardware salt reaches first, and the intake the attic breathes through.