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Measure the roof from satellite by address, trace it on the map, or type the footprint and pitch. You get the squares and the full material list to send your supplier.
Roofers price and order by the square: 100 square feet of roof surface. The catch is that the roof is bigger than the house. A 40 x 30 house with a one-foot overhang covers 1,344 square feet of ground, but at a 6/12 pitch the roof itself is 1,503 square feet, about 15 squares, before a single shingle is wasted.
Pitch is how many inches the roof rises for every 12 inches it runs. The steeper it is, the more surface sits over the same footprint. Multiply the footprint by the factor for its pitch:
| Pitch | Multiply by |
|---|---|
| 4/12 | 1.054 |
| 6/12 | 1.118 |
| 8/12 | 1.202 |
| 10/12 | 1.302 |
| 12/12 | 1.414 |
Every hip, valley and rake edge means cut shingles you cannot reuse. Add about 10% for a simple gable, 15% for a hip roof and 20% for a cut-up roof with dormers and valleys. Most shingles come 3 bundles to the square, and you cannot buy part of a bundle, so the order rounds up: 15.03 squares plus 15% is 17.28, which is 52 bundles, or 17.33 squares.
Ridge cap runs along every ridge and hip. On a hip roof that is a short ridge plus four hips, about 106 feet on the example house, or 4 bundles at 33 feet a bundle. Drip edge runs along the eaves and rakes and comes in 10-foot pieces. This page estimates both from your sections, and you can type your own lengths if you measured them on the roof.
Shingles are most of the bill, not all of it. Starter strip runs the eaves and rakes, underlayment covers the whole deck plus about 10% for laps, ice and water shield goes along the eaves and in the valleys where code calls for it, and a square takes about 320 coil nails at four per shingle. The material list above counts all of it, and Send material list puts it in a text or email for your supplier.
Multiply the order by your installed price per square. Asphalt shingles commonly run $350 to $550 a square installed, and the roofing pricing guide breaks that down by material, tear-off and pitch. When the number is ready, put it on a roofing estimate your customer can sign.
Cannot get on the roof? Start from the address: Measure from satellite reads the roof planes and pitches from aerial imagery for most US homes, and Trace it on the map lets you outline the roof yourself where there is no data. Either way the numbers land in the sections above, so check them against the house before you order.
A square is 100 square feet of roof surface. Roofers price jobs and order shingles by the square, so a 1,500 square foot roof is 15 squares.
Three for most 3-tab and architectural shingles, so each bundle covers about 33 square feet. Some heavy designer shingles take 4 or 5 bundles a square. The wrapper says which.
About 10% for a simple gable roof, 15% for a hip roof and 20% for a cut-up roof with dormers, valleys and several ridges. Steep roofs and complicated details push it higher.
Hold a level flat against the roof, measure 12 inches along it, and measure straight down from that point to the roof. That drop in inches is the pitch: 6 inches is a 6/12 roof. From the ground, a roof you can walk easily is usually about 4/12, and one that needs roof jacks is usually 9/12 or steeper.
Yes. On a phone, tap Measure pitch with your phone under the pitch, lay the phone flat on the roof or on a rafter in the attic with the top edge pointing up the slope, and hold it still. The page reads the tilt sensor and picks the nearest pitch. Nothing leaves your phone.
For most US addresses, yes. Type the address and tap Measure from satellite: it reads the roof planes and their pitch from Google aerial imagery and fills in the sections, with the imagery date so you know how current it is. Where there is no data, tap Trace it on the map and tap the corners of the roof yourself. Check the result against the house before you order.
The measurements, prices and material list stay in your browser. An address you look up is sent once to find the house and the roof, and is not stored. There is no account and no email.
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