Restore or replace, in dollars
What restoring costs, next to replacing
Restoring a low-slope roof with a coating system typically runs $3.50 to $7 per square foot installed. Tearing it off and replacing it typically runs $10 to $18. Applied over a sound, dry roof, a restoration system adds 10 to 15 years of service life. Run your roof through both ranges below: typical installed figures from published industry sources, not a quote.
The calculator
Run your roof through both ranges
Type the roof area. The four rates are typical installed costs per square foot, and you can overwrite any of them with a figure from your own quote. Then set the years of added service you are planning on.
Side by side
Two routes, and what the money buys on each
Both end with a roof that keeps water out. What differs is what you pay to take off, what goes to the dumpster, and what the building lives through while the work goes on. The cost row gives typical installed ranges, not a quote.
Restoration
- Typical installed cost
- Typically runs $3.50 to $7 per sq ft installed
- What you pay for
- Cleaning, repairs, primer where the substrate calls for it, detail work at seams and penetrations, then the coats: base and finish for an acrylic, silicone alone
- The old roof
- Stays in place as the base for the new surface, once any sections found wet are cut out and replaced
- The building during the work
- Stays open and in use while the coating goes on
- Wet insulation
- Found first with a survey and cores; only the wet areas are cut out and replaced, before any coating goes on
Tear-off and replacement
- Typical installed cost
- Typically runs $10 to $18 per sq ft installed
- What you pay for
- Removal and disposal of the old roof, new insulation, a new membrane and new flashings
- The old roof
- Comes off, every layer, down to the deck
- The building during the work
- Has sections opened to the deck while the old roof comes off and is hauled away
- Wet insulation
- Comes off with the rest of the roof, wet or dry, and every square foot of new insulation is in the price
Low end or high end
What moves a restoration inside its range
Where a roof lands between the low and the high end depends on seven things. Four are found on the roof, two are settled in the specification, and one is where the building is. Ask about each before anyone prices the job.
| Wet insulation coming out | Cutting out and replacing wet areas is part of the installed price and grows with the square feet that come out. If so much is wet that replacing makes more sense, the comparison turns over. |
|---|---|
| Details per square | Curbs, pitch pans, drains, pipes and seams are detailed by hand with fabric, tape or sealant before the field is coated. A roof crowded with units carries more of that per square. |
| Surface texture | A granulated cap sheet takes more material than a smooth membrane, because the first coat goes into the granules. Ribbed metal and sprayed foam carry more surface than their plan area. |
| Size, height and access | Part of every job is getting the crew, the equipment and the material onto the roof. On a small roof that share weighs more per square foot, and height and awkward access add to it. |
| Chemistry | Acrylic systems sit toward the low end, silicone toward the high end. Where water stands after rain, the roof's drainage usually makes that choice. |
| Film build | The data sheet and the written specification set how much coating goes on each square. A thicker film means more gallons, so ask each contractor which film build their price assumes. |
| Region | Labor rates and travel to the building vary by market. The published ranges are not specific to any one region; a local contractor prices both. |
What a bid cannot see
Nothing in daylight, warm in thermal
A sample from a real scan, with the address, the people and the companies removed and the map re-oriented. In daylight this patch looks like the rest of the membrane. In thermal it reads warmer than the dry roof around it. A price based on what the eye can see would miss it.
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Nothing to mark it in daylight
Daylight 
Thermal - Area flagged
- 34.2 sq ft
- Warmer than around it
- +9.5 °F
A suspect until a core confirms it.
The sample shows the map and the image pairs; a full scan also comes with video from the flight and a written assessment.
Before the bids
Firm up the number before anyone prices it
Whether the roof is dry is the one part nobody can price from the ground: without a survey, nobody knows how much wet insulation has to come out. On an evening after a sunny day, once the sun has set, we arrange the flight: a drone with a thermal camera flies over the roof. Wet insulation holds the day's heat longer than dry insulation and shows warmer, so you get a map with the areas that look wet outlined and measured in square feet, along with video from the flight and a written assessment, then confirmed with small core samples.
- Once cores confirm the mapped areas, every contractor can price the same areas, measured in square feet
- It usually takes one evening, nobody has to walk the whole roof, the building runs as normal, and we fly only with the owner's written go-ahead
- Ballasted or heavy-gravel, metal panel, highly reflective or already white-coated, and closed-cell foam roofs are surveyed another way, and we say so
- We arrange scans for commercial low-slope roofs anywhere in the US
Materials and labor
Who supplies what, and who does the work
A restoration can be bought as one installed price, or in two parts: the materials, and the contractor's labor. The ranges above are installed figures and cover both. If you buy the materials yourself, agree that up front with the contractor so nothing is counted twice. If you have no contractor yet, we work with a network of installers, roofing contractors who apply these systems, and can introduce you to one anywhere in the US, who looks at the roof and says whether it is a good candidate for restoration.
- Materials: genuine Sherwin-Williams Uniflex in sealed packaging, priced per project on a written quote
- Quotes answered within one business day; in stock by the pail, drum and tote, and stocked items ship in 1–3 business days
- Installed job: the contractor's, never ours, from cleaning and wet-area repairs to the finish coat
- Sherwin-Williams offers UNIGUARD system warranties of 10 or 15 years when its authorized contractors apply the system. The warranty is the manufacturer's, under its own terms; we supply the materials
Questions
Questions owners ask about the numbers
What owners and facility managers ask when they set a restoration beside a replacement.
Why is the range so wide?
Does a silicone coating cost more than acrylic?
How do I get a firm price for my roof?
Is the moisture scan included in these prices?
What do the materials alone cost?
Does a roof in Florida cost more to restore or replace?
What happens when the added years run out?
Guides
Read before you set a budget
Where the ranges come from, and what moves a roof inside them.
- What a commercial roof coating costs per square foot
Here is what a coating restoration typically costs per square foot installed, the seven things that move the number, and how to firm it up before anyone bids.
- Coating, recover or replacement: three ways to renew a flat roof
How a coating restoration, a recover and a tear-off compare on fit, cost, code and wet insulation, and how a moisture survey, cores and the deck pick one.
- How long a roof coating lasts, and what decides it
Six things decide how long a roof coating lasts: the roof underneath, film thickness, adhesion, drainage, details and upkeep. Here is what to ask about each.
- Silicone vs acrylic roof coatings: let the drainage decide
Acrylic where the roof drains, silicone where water stands: a side-by-side on ponding, sun, dirt, film build, recoating and cost, and what each commits you to.
- Restoring a roof in Florida: what the code asks before you coat
How Florida's 25 percent rule and its 2022 exception treat a coating, when the code requires tear-off, and what the HVHZ asks on moisture and permits.
- How to estimate material for a roof coating job
Area to squares, an allowance for texture and waste, the data-sheet rate per square per coat, round up to pails and drums, then count the detail materials.
Find out whether anything is wet, then price it
Send the building's address and we will quote the scan for that roof, anywhere in the US: the map, video from the flight and a written assessment. If a survey has already mapped the roof, send the roof area, the substrate and the site ZIP and we price the materials.