Comparing Roofing Bids in St. Louis County, Missouri

In St. Louis County, a hail or wind storm can leave roof damage that is easy to underestimate from the ground. Comparing written bids is one way to check scope and pricing.

The Northeast Prairie climate and your roofing

St. Louis County is in the Northeast Prairie, which is division 2 of NOAA's six Missouri climate divisions. The Missouri Climate Center says that "mean July precipitation is greatest in northeastern Missouri, largely the result of high-intensity convectional precipitation (4.4 inches), and least in southwestern Missouri (3.2 inches)." It also says that "The metropolitan areas of St. Louis and Kansas City exert a significant and measurable effect on their climates," with temperatures "elevated in both regions by a few degrees."

Roofing issues to look for after a storm

• Slow leaks after a storm — minor damage can go unnoticed until water stains show indoors.
• Wind-lifted and creased shingles — broken seal strips let later storms drive rain under the roof surface.
• Impact damage that hides from the ground — hail strikes are hard to see without getting on the roof, which is why documentation matters.
• Hail bruising and granule loss — impact marks that shorten shingle life even when no leak appears immediately.
• Flashing and penetration damage — check chimneys, vents, and valleys, where post-storm leaks can start.

What to expect locally

After a storm in St. Louis County, the useful work is slow: getting damage documented, raising questions with your insurer, and having the repair scoped carefully. Many homeowners find it helps to slow the process down at the start — documenting damage before tarps and repairs change the evidence, reading their policy before the first phone call, and getting more than one written bid before signing anything.

Be appropriately skeptical of anyone who shows up unsolicited after a storm, pressures you to sign paperwork on the spot, or quotes a price without getting on the roof or examining the damage up close. Storm-chasing crews can show up after any major storm, and one practical defense is unhurried, written bids that you can check against each other.

Season and timing

Storm damage in Northeast Prairie can arrive in clusters: a single hail event can affect many roofs, gutters, and siding elevations in an area at once. Comparing more than one written bid for the same scope is one way homeowners check pricing when demand spikes.

St. Louis County notes

For January 2016 through December 2025, the NOAA Storm Events Database holds 163 hail reports for St. Louis County on 44 separate days. Counted by month, May has 64 of the reports, March 52 and April 20; the other 27 are spread from February through December, and June is the largest of those with 13. Two dates carry 77 of the 163: March 14, 2025 with 43 reports and May 16, 2025 with 34. A stone diameter of 2.00 inches or larger is given on 15 of the reports, and the largest figure in the file, 2.50 inches, includes an entry filed under Allenton on May 26, 2024.

NOAA's narrative for April 1, 2024 puts the largest stones at 1.75 to 2 inches, "reported in Chesterfield and later in Ferguson," and lists severe hail in Wildwood, Maryland Heights, Woodson Terrace, Bridgeton, Hazelwood, Florissant, Dellwood and Jennings. The March 14, 2024 narrative describes another wide swath of hail up to two inches in diameter that fell in Fenton, Valley Park, Sunset Hills, Crestwood, Sappington, Webster Groves, Shrewsbury and Lakewood. On July 9, 2021 the narrative has hail up to two inches in diameter across Bridgeton, St. Ann, Overland, Maryland Heights, Creve Coeur and Brentwood.

Some wind entries describe roofs directly. The April 15, 2023 entry filed under Morschels carries a magnitude of 87 knots, which NOAA marks as estimated, and its narrative says thunderstorm winds "took most of the roof off of an outbuilding" and were estimated between 74 and 100 mph. A March 14, 2025 entry filed under South Bellefontaine says winds "tore the roof off a garage and off a portion of the connected home." NOAA lists 17 tornado reports on 10 days for the county in these files, and the earliest is dated December 10, 2021. The April 1, 2024 South Bellefontaine entry is an EF0 whose narrative reports "minor damage to the roofs of multiple residences," and the April 15, 2023 Morschels entry is an EF1 with "minor roof damage to a couple of houses." The March 14, 2025 entry filed under Clarkson Valley is rated EF2 and gives a path of 20.67 miles with a maximum width of 880 yards; its narrative says the tornado "reached peak surveyed intensity just south of St. Louis Lambert International Airport, where a house sustained EF-2 damage (122 mph)."

The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey (5-year tables B25034 and B25035) counts 446,192 housing units in St. Louis County and puts the median year built at 1969. The largest decade band is the 1960s with 82,127 units (18.4 percent), followed by the 1950s with 81,063 and the 1970s with 71,197. Another 28,196 units date from the 1940s and 43,354 from 1939 or earlier, so the bands through 1979 add up to 305,937 units, or 68.6 percent of the total. The age of a house is only a starting point, so find out when your roof itself was last replaced.

St. Louis County and the City of St. Louis are separate jurisdictions. The Census Bureau's county code file lists them as two entries with different codes, 29189 for the county and 29510 for the city, and every number on this page is for the county only. Permit practice can differ from one municipality to the next, as the two pages below show, so they are examples and not a rule for every street. The City of Kirkwood's building remodeling page says "Permits are issued and inspections are required for all new construction, and the remodeling and repair of existing structures in the City of Kirkwood to insure compliance with the appropriate codes," and lists 314-822-5823 with hours of Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The City of Florissant's permits page lists the work it requires permits for as "fences, swimming pools, decks and porches, sheds, room additions, basement remodeling, garages, fireplaces, patio covers, electrical wiring, plumbing work, water heater replacement, and furnace and air conditioner installation"; roofing is not named in that list, and the page gives Public Works at 314-839-7648 for questions. Because neither page settles whether a re-roof needs a permit, ask the department that covers your address before work begins.

Other wind entries in the file put roof material and shingles in their narratives. The June 14, 2017 entry filed under Breckenridge Hills says "Roofing material was blown off of the buildings at Northwest Plaza onto the parking lot." On July 14, 2018 an entry filed under Burke City says a tree fell "onto a house on South Hartnett Avenue causing moderate roof damage" between Florissant and Dellwood. On August 12, 2021 an entry filed under Vigus says "In Eureka, several houses had minor shingle damage." On April 18, 2024 an entry filed under Sappington reports that "Some reported shingles blown off of roofs, while one reported their entire roof had blown off." On May 7, 2024, an entry filed under Robinwood West says tree limbs of 6 to 8 inches snapped in Maryland Heights and "A few of these punctured holes in a house roof." On March 14, 2025, one entry filed under Burke City says winds "caused roof damage to multiple homes in the area," and another filed under South Bellefontaine says a mid-sized home had damage to "the entire front side of their roof" and was under a tarp when the report was made. Each of these is a single NOAA entry, and some cover one address while others cover several communities, so none of them tells you what happened to any one roof.

The National Weather Service office in St. Louis also keeps its own review of one earlier storm. Its page on April 22, 2011 describes an EF4 tornado that "tore a path of destruction from west to east across the St. Louis Metropolitan Area, from St. Louis County Missouri eastward across the Mississippi River into Madison County Illinois." That page is NWS's county tornado listing, which says "Data available through 1/1/2013."

The entry dated March 14, 2025, filed under Vigus, reads: "Thunderstorm winds blew an entire intact garage or shed roof onto the ground and into a standing tree, splitting the roof around the tree."

Treat the roof section of any written bid as a short list of decisions rather than one price. The first decision is whether the old shingles are stripped to bare boards or whether a new layer is laid over them. Stripping lets whoever does the work see the wood deck; an overlay does not. Neither choice is wrong by definition, but the bid should say which one is meant, and it should say what happens if soft or stained boards turn up once the old surface is gone.

Next, read down the flashing items. Brick chimneys, plumbing stacks, wall-to-roof joints and the points where two slopes meet are places where water can get in, so a bid that mentions only shingles and a total leaves out the parts a homeowner most wants spelled out. Look for words such as step flashing, counter flashing, drip edge, ridge cap and pipe boots, and look for a note on whether the old metal is reused or replaced.

Then compare how each bid treats the lowest edge of the roof and the valleys. Some bids add a self-sealing membrane there, and some do not. If one bid names it and another is silent, the two totals are not measuring the same job. Do the same with underlayment, starter strips and attic airflow: intake at the eaves, exhaust near the ridge, and whether anything is blocking the soffit.

Keep photographs of the roof from the ground and, if you can do it safely, of any ceiling stains inside, dated before work starts. Ask for the shingle maker and product line by name, the color, the number of bundles, and the warranty paper that comes with them. Ask who will be on the property, what is to be done with old nails and torn-off material, and how the yard and gutters will be protected. Finally, keep every page of whatever you sign.

How Otter Quotes works here

Instead of calling down a list and repeating your story, you submit your St. Louis County project once.

We create a scope of work and send it to local contractors.

Any bids you receive are written, so you can compare them on scope, price, and terms. Comparing more than one written bid is one way to understand local pricing, especially in the busy weeks after a storm.

Frequently asked questions

Should I repair or replace after partial-slope damage?

Shingle availability and the age of the roof both come into it; your insurer can tell you how your policy addresses matching. Written bids that price both paths let you compare the two side by side.

Is one roofing bid enough?

Comparing bids can surface scope differences and give you a way to check pricing, particularly during post-storm demand spikes.

Otter Quotes is an independent, informational platform that connects homeowners with contractors for property damage repair and exterior improvement projects. Otter Quotes does not independently verify, endorse, or warrant the quality of any contractor's work, and does not guarantee the availability of any particular contractor. Insurance coverage decisions are made solely by your insurer under the terms of your policy. Page generated 2026-10-05.