I am not out to badmouth colleagues. There are plenty of good roofers in Brabant, and some are cheaper than me and still do neat work. What I do have something to say about is the type that goes door to door every summer.
Because repairing the damage they cause is work that comes back every year. And the people I do that for could not have known beforehand what they know now. That is what this article is about.
Why a low price is usually a shorter list
Roof work is labour and material, and neither can be cut back as much as a big price difference suggests. What does happen: parts disappear. The old lead stays in place. The roof boarding is not checked. Ladders are used instead of scaffolding. The rubble does not go into a skip.
None of those choices is visible after handover. The roof looks neat. You notice the difference four or five winters later, and by then the company usually cannot be found.
No fixed address or Chamber of Commerce (KvK) registration. A company that will still exist tomorrow has an address, a number and a registration you can check.
Payment in advance in cash. A deposit is normal for buying materials. A large part up front, in cash, without an invoice is not.
At the door, in a hurry. “We are in the street anyway” and “this offer is only valid today” are not arguments about your roof. They are a way of not giving you time.
No insurance for working at height. If something goes wrong on your roof or with your house, without that cover you are the one who has to sort it out.
“Every year I get calls to repair work that started out as a bargain a season earlier. That is the most expensive roof work there is.”
Fouad, owner of Astrodak Service
What you can check in five minutes
Look the company up in the Chamber of Commerce trade register and check that the address and the activity are right. Search for the company name plus ‘reviews’ and see whether there are reviews that go beyond a score. Ask for two addresses nearby where they have worked. And ask who will come: their own people or hired in.
With us you can find all of that. We have worked from Vught since 2021, are rated 5.0 from 50 reviews on Google, are VCA-certified and you can view our
projects in the region. More about what to look out for is in
choosing a roofer.
Not sure about the right approach?
I would rather come and look at your roof with my colleagues first than come up with a solution from a distance. During the free inspection you hear what is really needed, even if that is less than you thought.
And if you have already started with the wrong company?
It happens, and it is no reason to leave it. Record what happened: photos, the quote, the payments, the contact. Have the work assessed by someone with no interest in redoing it. Sometimes it can be repaired and sometimes not, but that judgement should be well founded.
In those cases I am happy to come and look and simply say what I see, even if the answer is that the work is largely fine. That happens too.
The difference between sharp and too low
A sharp price can be perfectly fine. A roofer with little overhead, short lines of communication and efficient scheduling is simply cheaper than an organisation with a sales department in between. That is a real difference and there is nothing wrong with it.
What is not realistic: a price that cannot be explained by the work it includes. Labour is labour and material is material, and neither has so much slack that a big difference can come from it. If someone is far below the rest, something is missing, usually the leadwork, the scaffolding or the waste removal.
Price is a factor, not a conclusion
To be honest: I am rarely the cheapest. I am also rarely the most expensive. What I aim for is a price that matches the work it includes, and that does not change after handover. That is what a fixed price after a proper inspection means.
What makes a realistic price possible
A price that adds up comes from somewhere. With us, that is short lines without a sales department, our own people instead of subcontractors, and working in a limited area around Vught so that little of the day is lost to travel. That is not a sales pitch but the reason the sums work out.
What is not in it is room to skip the leadwork or leave out the scaffolding. Those are not items you can save on without the roof getting worse, and that is exactly the distinction between sharp and too low.
Frequently asked questions about price and reliability
