# Trying to learn and figure out TPO rates.



## FL Roofer (Nov 5, 2012)

I'm the new guy here but have been reading for awhile, especially doing searches on this topic. I've been roofing for about 8 years now and a foreman for 5. Here in FL you must be a roofing contractor to roof, advertise, sub or anything roofing. For now I work for a company here until I am able to get my license. 

We do about 50/50 residential and commercial work. Up until now, the commercial has all been modified with the little single ply jobs mixed in. Now I'm stumped on bigger single ply jobs and what we should be doing in a day or week.

I have two jobs coming up in the next month that I've been asked to give labor estimates and times for my crew. We are a great shingle crew and hot mop crew, real good at torch down and cold process, but I'm not so sure about single ply as far as what we're getting done. One thing that slows us down I know is that we do a good job and I want it to look good and not have much of a punchlist. Even though we aren't sloppy and do good work, we should be doing more on TPO. I find myself doing much better on modified and shingle roofs than TPO and I don't feel like that should be the case. Going off of what some guys are doing, I would think you should be making pretty good money on commercial TPO. I've heard of 400 sq jobs being done in a week, which is unreal to me.

Job 1 is a new construction SA system going over 3.1 ISO mechanically attached to a metal deck. We are using 10 ft. wide rolls. The building is 85x50 with parapet walls ranging from 3-5 ft. depending on what side of the building you're on. There are (4) 3x5 curbs, (3) 3x3 curbs, and just 3 or 4 small electrical boxes and plumbing pipes coming through the roof. The building has the slope built in. The low side as 4 drains with crickets built around them with overflow scuppers on that low side wall. That being said what do you expect a 5 man crew that has average rates should get this done in? Or on a job like this what is the average per man for ISO laid and TPO installed? Coping, etc. isn't much of a deal because it's something we would do anyways and I have to come back once the stucco is on for that. My main problem is the TPO.

Job 2 is going to be much nicer I hope. It is 200ftx125ft and pretty wide open for the most part. It's a built up gravel roof with gravel stop and gutters. We are cleaning all the gravel off then replacing about 3000 sq ft. of 2x6 tongue and groove decking on random spots all over the roof. It's an old warehouse that someone just bought and is having us roof but it sat for a long long time. We will be screwing down a 1/2" recovery board and going over it with an 8ft. wide roll of MA TPO. I do have a robot that I'll be using for the seams. I'm taking off the AC units taking the curbs out. There are still about 20 penetrations on the roof that are mostly small hoods, vents, and only 1 plumbing pipe. What should I expect for rates on this job as far as laying down the recovery board and screwing off the seams then heat welding them? 

I can figure the curbs and penetrations on these jobs since I will be doing most of them, but I'm having a real hard time estimating what my 4-5 other guys will be able to get done. I'm not sure what the speed differences would be with an SA system that we are heat welding all seams and a MA system with all heat welded seams. 

I know it's a pretty broad range of questions but what do you expect or estimate per man on these types of roofs? I will probably have me being the foreman on the job which I work, 2 experienced roofers, and 2 helpers that have a little experience with 1 more guy possibly starting. Thanks for any input.


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## 1985gt (Dec 21, 2010)

Well that is a tough one to answer. 

The SA is going to go down a little bit slower then the MA. Since you have surely installed insulation on hot/torch jobs we can just focus on the membrane. 

Here is kind of how our estimating spread sheet is set up, its xxxx for a sq to just lay down the membrane, it's xxxx to apply the glue, it's xxxx to install anchor bar. That's basically the three things you need to figure out there.


Now since you are good at hot work I would probably take that per sq price and (labor) and take it time 1.5. It's going to be slower until you are more familiar with it. And since your subbing you can kind of get away with being a little strong. You don't have to worry about the adhesive on either of the jobs you mentioned, so we will for get about that. 

Now installing screws in the seams/anchor bar. I figure these the same labor rate and it's easy to figure between 6" and 12" so just figure up how long it would take your guys say and experienced guy and a helper to install 10' of anchor bar. Say it takes 2 min per foot, so 100' takes 200 mins / 60 = 3.3 hours so just over an hour and a half for each guy, (yes this is probably a little bit long but it may be close for a CMU wall) so anyway you can reverse this to get a price per foot, then for the seems if they are 6" double it.

As far as walls, it will take you 1/2 if not 1/3 of the time it takes to flash in walls with hot. If you got 3 guys flying in plys on walls 1 moper and 2 flying them in, you will get twice as much done installing single plys on the same height, but you may want to figure a bit stronger in the beginning.

I hope this helps some what. Once you get more familiar with it, it will actually be a bit quicker then hot jobs unless you were moping down the ISO on hot jobs, the screwing it down takes for ever.

Oh and doing 400 square per week on a no tear off and easy lay up new construction would not be all that difficult but I would want to have around 6-7 guys. I did a metal roof lay over fully adhered EPDM flue fill and 1/2 cover board and was doing 40+ sq's a day with 5 guys. That included me being inside the building 1/2 the day to watch for conduits and loading the roof each day with the forklift.


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