How Much Do Aluminum Shingles Cost in Oregon?

Why can't anyone give me a flat price for aluminum shingles in Oregon?

Because the roof is measured, not the house. Roofing is priced by the square, which is 100 square feet of roof surface, and the roof surface is always larger than the floor plan once pitch and overhangs are counted. A 1,600 square foot Portland bungalow with a 12-in-12 front gable can carry more squares than a 2,200 square foot ranch in Beaverton with a low 4-in-12 hip. Any contractor who quotes you from the tax lot square footage is guessing, and the guess is usually low. Oregon adds a second layer to that problem. The state's housing stock runs from 1905 Victorians and 1920s Craftsman foursquares in inner Portland, Salem and Eugene to 1960s ranches in Tigard and Hillsboro to shingle-style homes on the coast and farmhouses across the Willamette Valley. Each of those has a different relationship between floor area and roof area, and a different amount of cutting and flashing per square. Two homes with the same square count can land a long way apart on the final number. So the honest answer is that an aluminum shingle roof in Oregon sits above asphalt and below natural slate or copper, and the exact figure comes from a tape measure on your roof. The 374 roofs on record in Portland since 1998 were all quoted that way, and the spread between them has far more to do with the roof than with the product.

What roof features push an Oregon quote up?

Pitch and height first. A steep roof needs fall protection, staging and slower movement, and much of the older west-side housing stock is steep by design because it was built to shed rain. Portland Craftsman bungalows and Victorians in Northeast and Southeast, the older streets of Oregon City and Salem, and the hillside homes in Lake Oswego and the West Hills all bring dormers, multiple gables, valleys, chimneys and skylights. Each of those is a place where the installer stops laying field shingles and starts cutting, flashing and interlocking around an obstacle, and that is where the labor per square climbs. A Victorian with a slate-profile aluminum roof is the most complex job we do in Oregon, because the roof is usually tall, has several intersecting planes and often includes a turret or a hip-to-gable transition. A mid-century ranch in Gresham or Albany is the simplest. The product is the same interlocking aluminum shingle either way, and the difference in the quote is almost entirely labor and flashing metal. Access matters too. A tight lot in inner Portland with no room for a dump trailer is slower to work than a farmhouse outside McMinnville where the truck backs up to the eave. Ask the estimator to show where the labor is going on your roof rather than accepting a lump sum.

Does tearing off the old asphalt roof change the price in Oregon?

It changes it more than most homeowners expect, and in Oregon it is rarely optional. A large share of homes in Portland, Salem, Eugene and the Willamette Valley carry a second asphalt layer laid over the first sometime in the 1990s or 2000s. Aluminum shingles can be installed over a single flat layer of asphalt in some cases, but a second layer needs to come off, and two layers of wet asphalt are heavy, slow to strip and expensive to dispose of. Tear-off labor and disposal fees are separate line items on a proper Oregon bid, and you should see both. Then there is what the tear-off reveals. Multnomah and Clackamas counties average around 58 inches of rain a year, Lane County about 56, Benton about 60, and Columbia County about 59. A roof that has been leaking slowly under moss-lifted asphalt tabs for a decade will have soft plywood or rotted skip sheathing along the eaves, around chimneys and in the valleys. Deck repair is priced per sheet or per board, and it cannot be quoted until the old roof is off, so expect a per-unit allowance in the bid rather than a fixed number. On a 1920s home with original one-by skip sheathing under cedar shakes and then asphalt, the deck often needs to be fully sheeted with new plywood before an interlocking aluminum system goes down. That is a meaningful cost, and it is also the last time that deck will need attention, because the aluminum above it is not going to let water through to it again.

Do the coast, the Gorge and wildfire zones cost more to roof?

Yes, and for reasons that are specific to where the house sits. On the coast in Clatsop, Tillamook and Lincoln counties, gusts reach 85 to 91 mph and rain runs 71 to 81 inches a year. In the Columbia Gorge at Hood River and The Dalles the wind is sustained rather than gusting, and Hood River sees 76 inches of snow and 55 freeze-thaw days in an average year. Those jobs are installed to a tighter fastening schedule, with more clips and fasteners per shingle and heavier attention to eave, rake and ridge detailing, because the four-way interlock is what keeps the roof on and it has to be anchored properly to do its job. More fasteners and edge metal is more labor, and it shows in the quote, as it did on the 34-square cedar shingle install at Cloverdale in Tillamook County. The aluminum itself is why the coast is a good fit rather than a problem. Aluminum contains no iron and cannot rust in salt air, where steel panels and exposed fasteners corrode and many steel warranties limit oceanfront coverage. So the coast premium is a fastening premium, not a material premium. East and south, and along the wildland edge in the Cascade foothills, Oregon's SB 762 wildfire hazard map and home-hardening rules apply. Aluminum shingles are not fire-rated on their own, but a Class A fire-rated assembly is available when they are installed over the specified fire-resistant underlayment. That underlayment is an added material and labor cost on a roof in a hazard zone, and it should appear on the bid as its own line so you can see it rather than have it buried or, worse, quietly left out.

How do I compare aluminum shingle bids in Oregon honestly?

Start by comparing the cost per year rather than the cost at signing. An asphalt roof west of the Cascades is generally on its second or third replacement over the same 50-plus years an aluminum shingle roof is warranted to last, and each of those asphalt cycles carries its own tear-off, disposal and deck repair. Add the wash-and-treat moss cycle every few seasons that asphalt and cedar need on a shaded north slope in Portland or Eugene, which aluminum does not, because moss has nothing to root into on an interlocked metal surface. Divide each option by its years of service and the comparison usually looks different from the two numbers on the proposals. Then line the bids up feature for feature. Confirm each one states the measured squares, whether it includes tear-off of every existing layer and disposal, what the deck repair allowance is per sheet, what underlayment and ice-and-water membrane is specified, whether the fastening schedule is written for your exposure, and whether a Class A assembly is included if you are in an SB 762 hazard zone. Ask for the ICC-ES ESR-1790 evaluation report and the written Guardian lifetime warranty terms, including the one-time transfer. A bid that is cheaper because it skips one of those items is not cheaper. Verify the contractor's Oregon CCB license and check it is active and bonded. Financing is commonly available for a premium roof and can spread the cost across the years the roof is actually working for you, so ask what programs the contractor works with and read the terms. And if your carrier offers a discount for a UL 2218 Class 4 impact-rated roof, ask them directly rather than taking a salesperson's word for it. A measured, itemized quote from a licensed Oregon installer is the only number worth acting on.

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