How Long Does a Roof Replacement Take?

Most standard homes are completed in one day. More complex and larger homes take two to four days for a complete removal and replacement. What almost nobody tells you is that the install is the shortest part of the project: the calendar between your first phone call and the morning the crew arrives is usually measured in weeks, and most of that time is spent waiting on other people rather than on roofers. Arrowhead Roofing has been replacing roofs in northeast Oklahoma since 1987, and this page covers both clocks, because the one that frustrates people is not the one they asked about.

Note: this is a general guide. Every house and every job is different, and durations move with size, pitch, complexity, what is found under the old roof, and the weather. Your contractor should tell you what to expect on yours before the work is scheduled.

Here is the whole thing end to end, with the parts that have a fixed duration marked apart from the parts that do not.

The Short Answer

One day for most standard homes. Two to four for complex and larger ones. And no standards body publishes a duration for a roof replacement, so any figure you read anywhere, including this one, is a contractor describing their own crews rather than citing a rule.

Ours is the number this company has given since long before it had a website: it really depends on the size and pitch of the home, most standard homes go in a day, and more complex and larger homes take two to four for a complete removal and replacement.

The part that surprises people is the rest of the calendar, so that is where this page starts.

The Weeks Before the Crew Arrives

Most of the project happens before anyone gets on a ladder, and knowing the sequence is the difference between feeling ignored and knowing where you are in it.

Before the first visit, two reports are ordered. An aerial measurement report and a weather report showing what storms have crossed that address. A hail and storm map for the address is also printed before anyone leaves the office, and the estimator carries it to the inspection and shows it to you there.

At the inspection, the roof gets photographed and you get an answer. Every side and corner before going up, then the roof itself. We go over the photographs with you off the roof and tell you plainly whether there is damage.

Then a written estimate. It is a lump sum, for a roof system designed for your house, including what we recommend for the ventilation and for the product. If you want to understand how that number is built, how much does a new roof cost in the Tulsa area? takes it apart input by input.

On a storm claim, this is where the clock stops being ours. The carrier inspects and decides on its own timetable. Once we are engaged as your contractor we build the itemised estimate in the same software the carriers use and send it to them, and you can have a copy on request. Nothing about that stage has a duration we can promise, and any roofer who gives you one is guessing.

Then scheduling, and the checklist. Our Homeowner’s Checklist goes out to you before the job. It is fifteen items and it is the single most useful thing you will be sent, because almost everything that delays a crew on the morning is on it. How do you prepare for a roof replacement? walks through it.

What Actually Happens on the Day

In order, and roughly in the proportions the day takes.

• Material and the trailer arrive. We deliver our own material from our own yard rather than having a supply house drop it, so the delivery and the crew are on the same schedule. The dump trailer sits in the driveway most of the day.
• Tear-off, down to the deck. In Oklahoma this is not optional on a shingle roof: the state amendment at OAC 748:20 prohibits laying shingles over existing shingles, so a replacement means removal. This is the loud part and it is usually over by mid morning.
• The deck gets looked at. Soft, delaminated or water damaged sheathing is replaced now, and this is the one step that can turn a one day job into a two day job. It is also the step nobody can price accurately from the ground.
• Dry-in. Underlayment across the field, leak barrier at the valleys and at pitch changes, and around penetrations. It goes quiet for a while here.
• Edges and details. Drip edge, starter course, then flashings, pipe boots and vents.
• Field shingles, then ridge and hip cap. The steady rhythm of nail guns for the rest of the day. Six nails per shingle on every roof, which is the manufacturer’s enhanced pattern rather than the standard one.
• Cleanup. Magnets over the yard, the beds and the drive. If the lawn was mown short beforehand they pick up far more, which is why that is on the checklist.
• The walkthrough. In daylight, with the person who did the work, before anybody leaves.

Why a Roof Is Never Left Open

The question behind “will it take more than a day” is usually a different question: what happens to my house overnight.

The answer is that a roof does not get left open. If a job has to stop early, for weather or for heat, the open areas are felted and dried in and tarped before the crew leaves. That has been this company’s position since long before it was written on a website, and it is why a two day job is not two days of exposure.

Heat is the version of this that catches people out in an Oklahoma July. We have measured a black shingle roof at 179 degrees on an August afternoon in this area. On days like that crews start early and can shut down early, which occasionally turns a one day roof into a day and a half, and the roof is dried in either way.

The Roof Is Finished Before It Is Sealed

A detail almost nobody explains, and it produces a worried phone call every winter.

Asphalt shingles are not glued down by the crew. Each one carries a factory sealant strip that softens in the sun and bonds the course above it, and that happens after the crew has gone home. In summer heat it can be the same afternoon. In cool weather it can take considerably longer, and until it happens the shingles can be lifted at the edge by hand.

GAF publishes this directly in its own technical bulletin on hand-sealing, which states that a shingle failing to seal because of insufficient heat is not a manufacturing defect, and lists cold weather, steep slopes, mansard roofs and repairs as the circumstances calling for hand-sealing.

What that means for your timeline is simple. The install has a duration. The sealing has a season. A roof installed in January is a finished roof and it is not a sealed roof yet, and that is normal rather than a fault.

What Changes the Answer

Three things move a job off one day, and the first one is by far the most common.

What is under the shingles

Decking is the most frequent discovery at tear-off, and a re-deck adds material, labour and a lot more dust. A roof with a previous layover, a known leak, or an age that suggests spaced sheathing underneath is a roof where a second day is more likely than not.

Pitch, facets and access

A steep roof is slower for the same area, because everything on it is slower, including the safety setup. A cut up roof with many short runs and long valleys takes longer than its square count suggests. And a house the trailer cannot get near changes how far every bundle and every scrap has to be carried.

When in the season you are asking

After a significant hail event, every roofer in the Tulsa area has a queue and every supply chain is under pressure at once. The install still takes a day. Getting to the install takes longer, and no honest contractor will tell you otherwise in the fortnight after a storm.

Related Questions

Do I need to be home for it?

Reachable rather than present, and there is one very specific reason why. Should you stay home during a roof replacement? covers the breaker, the pets and the walkthrough.

What do I need to do before the crew arrives?

Fifteen things, and the driveway is the one that matters most. How do you prepare for a roof replacement? is our own homeowner checklist, item by item.

Could they go over the old shingles and save a day?

Not on a shingle roof in this state, and the reason is a state code amendment rather than a preference. Can you put a new roof over an old one? covers what the rule says and why it exists.

See Also

The two answers either side of this one are what the code decides about the work itself, and how long the finished roof should last.