Roofing square
The unit roofers price by: a 10-by-10-foot area, or 100 square feet of roof.
A roofing square is 100 square feet of roof surface (a 10-foot by 10-foot patch). Roofers quote materials and labor by the square, not by the square foot, so knowing your roof's square count is the fastest way to sanity-check a bid. A typical 2,000-square-foot home has roughly 20 to 26 squares once you account for pitch and overhangs — the steeper and more cut-up the roof, the more squares (and dollars) than the home's floor area suggests. If a contractor's quote doesn't list a square count, ask for one.