Colorado law says a roofing contractor may not pay, waive, rebate or even promise to rebate any part of your insurance deductible — and may not advertise that they will. It also requires your contract to hold your deposit in trust until materials are actually delivered or most of the work is done, and gives you seventy-two hours to rescind after your insurer tells you the claim was denied in whole or in part. Every one of those rules exists because of what happens in Denver after a hailstorm.
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C.R.S. Title 6, Article 22 sets out exactly what a residential roofing contract has to contain before work begins: the scope of services and materials, approximate dates of service, approximate costs based on damage known at signing, the contractor's physical address, email and telephone, identification of the surety and liability insurer with their contact information, the cancellation and refund policy including a full-refund rescission within 72 hours, a written statement of the § 6-22-104 rescission right, and a statement that the contractor cannot pay, waive or rebate any part of your deductible. The article was enacted in 2012 and applies to work over $1,000.
Section 6-22-105 prohibits a roofing contractor from advertising or promising to pay, waive or rebate all or part of an insurance deductible. The consequences are real: the insurer may disregard that contractor's estimate entirely, and either you or the insurer may sue for damages. Separately, a roofing contractor may not act as a public insurance adjuster unless licensed as one. When a door-knocker offers to make your deductible disappear, they are describing an illegal act and telling you something about how they work.
Colorado issues no statewide roofing license — Denver licenses its own. A company holds a Specialty Class D license, and it cannot apply at all until an individual supervisor certificate has been approved. Denver issues four roofing certificates: Roof Covering/Waterproofing for commercial and residential, Green Roof Systems Only, Roofing-Shingles Residential Only, and Metal Roof Installer. If your house has a low-slope porch or patio section, that distinction matters — a shingle licensee may install membrane only where it is under ten percent of the roof or two squares, whichever is smaller.
Denver draws its wind requirement on city streets rather than applying one citywide number. Per the city's Roofing Guide, east of Federal Boulevard requires a minimum 115 mph rating, Federal to Sheridan requires 125 mph, and Sheridan to Kipling requires 140 mph. Shingles must be tested and labeled to ASTM D 7158, or to ASTM D 3161 if the brand falls outside that standard's scope. A product that is correct in Park Hill can be underrated in West Highland, and that is a mistake we see on bids regularly.
Denver's 359,581 housing units split unusually: 20 percent were built in 2010 or later, while 34.3 percent predate 1960 and 16.9 percent predate 1940. The median year built is 1975, meaning half the city's stock is fifty years old or more — past the service life of essentially any asphalt shingle ever put on it. Those two populations need completely different conversations, and the pre-1960 group is where plank decking, second layers and uninsulated roof cavities all live at once.
A UL 2218 Class 4 shingle is tested with a two-inch steel ball dropped to match the kinetic energy of a hailstone that size, and it passes if there is no tearing, fracturing, cracking or rupturing visible on the back. Crushed granules and dents on the top surface are not failures — so a Class 4 roof can still be dented. Denver's own Roofing Guide contains no impact-resistance requirement at all; its wind rules run through ASTM ratings, not UL 2218. Class 4 here is an insurance and economics decision, and we will explain it that way rather than as a code item.
We get on the roof, photograph condition and damage, and — if we are writing a contract — write one that meets Article 22 in full, including the trust language in bold, the rescission clause and the deductible statement. You keep the photographs whether or not you hire us. If an insurance claim is involved we will explain the 72-hour rescission right before you sign, not after.
The shingle wind rating is chosen from where your house actually sits between Federal, Sheridan and Kipling. If your house predates 1960 we assume plank decking and include a deck remediation line, because Denver's board-gap rule is a common inspection failure and it should not arrive as a change order.
Where two or more layers of any covering exist, the roof comes off to deck — Denver requires it. We inspect and photograph the sheathing, remediate gaps to the city's rule, and get underlayment, drip edge and flashings in before the crew leaves. If the roof cavity turns out to be uninsulated, we will tell you what the energy code requires before we proceed.
Denver does not require a pre-inspection on a one- and two-family asphalt job, but the 201 final is required on every roof type. Magnet sweep, walk-through with you, and a closeout file: permit record, warranty registration and the deck photographs from step three.
In Denver the first question about a shingle is not the color — it is whether its ASTM D 7158 or D 3161 rating meets the minimum for your street. East of Federal that is 115 mph, Federal to Sheridan 125, Sheridan to Kipling 140. We select from products that actually carry the rating your address requires and show you the label, rather than assuming one product covers the whole city.
The Denver metro recorded hail on 140 distinct days between 2015 and 2025 — roughly 12.7 days a year across five counties — with 75 separate reports of two-inch-or-larger stones. A Class 4 shingle earns its premium for many homeowners through an insurance credit. We are careful about two things: Denver's code does not require Class 4, and a Class 4 pass means no crack through the back, not no cosmetic damage. Ask your own agent what credit your carrier offers, because it varies and we will not quote a number we cannot source.
A great many Denver houses carry a low-slope porch or patio section where shingles never belonged. Denver's licensing rules are specific here: membrane must be installed by a D-Roof Covering/Waterproofing licensee unless it is under ten percent of the roof or two squares. We hold the right classification and we will tell you when the correct answer for that section is a membrane or a metal panel rather than more shingles.
Most laminated shingles carry a limited lifetime warranty with a non-prorated initial period. We read the document with you — it is tied to your ownership, it prorates after the initial window, and it is usually material-only unless the full system is installed by a certified contractor.
Where underlayment, starter, field shingle, hip and ridge and ventilation all come from one manufacturer and are installed by a contractor that manufacturer has certified, coverage extends into workmanship for a defined term. Note that ice-and-water shield is often a warranty condition in Denver even though the city does not require it by code — that is the honest reason to install it.
Our own coverage on the installation. Behind it sits Colorado's statutory framework: a written contract with required terms, your deposit held in trust until materials are delivered or most of the work is done, and a 72-hour rescission right if your insurer denies the claim in whole or in part.
Don't see your question? Call us at (720) 644-2020 — we're happy to talk it through.
No. C.R.S. § 6-22-105 prohibits a roofing contractor from advertising or promising to pay, waive or rebate all or part of an insurance deductible, and § 6-22-103(1)(g) requires your contract to contain a statement that the contractor cannot do so. If they do it anyway, your insurer may disregard their estimate, and either you or the insurer may sue for damages. It is also a strong signal about how the rest of the job will be run.
It is more specific than a generic three-day cooling-off right, and the trigger matters. Under C.R.S. § 6-22-104 you may rescind the contract within seventy-two hours after receiving notice from your insurer that the claim has been denied in whole or in part — the clock runs from the insurer's denial notice, not from signing. Notice of rescission must be in writing, by electronic transmission, mail or personal delivery. Within ten days the contractor must return payments and deposits, except amounts attributable to work actually performed.
Yes. Denver's Quick Permits page lists a #2 Roofing, Insulation and Exterior Wall Covering permit for repairs to or replacement of an existing roof. On a building under 25,000 square feet a permit is required once repairs exceed ten percent of the roof area or two roof squares, whichever is smaller. Roof coatings need no permit; every new penetration does. The fee is derived from the valuation of the work including labor and materials, and Denver publishes no flat roofing fee — we compute it for your scope rather than quoting a figure we would be guessing at.
No, and this is where most competitor pages are wrong. Denver's official Roofing Guide reproduces its amended IRC Table R301.2 with 'Ice Barrier Underlayment Required: No', and states in text that self-adhering bitumen installed at the eaves and rakes to two feet inside the exterior wall is not required. It is frequently a good idea and it is often a manufacturer warranty condition, and we will recommend it on those grounds. We will not sell it to you as a code requirement, because in Denver it is not one.
Often, but ask your own agent for the number. There is no Colorado statute requiring a Class 4 premium discount — the provision widely cited in Colorado roofing marketing, C.R.S. 10-4-110.8, contains no such requirement; its only roofing mention is in a list of factors for estimating reconstruction cost. Many carriers do offer a credit, but the amount and the eligibility rules vary, and we will not publish a percentage or name carriers without a policy document in hand.
Because Denver says so. The city's Roofing Guide sets wind speed zones: a 115 mph minimum rating east of Federal Boulevard, 125 mph from Federal to Sheridan, and 140 mph from Sheridan to Kipling — the requirement rises as you move west toward the foothills. Shingles must be tested and labeled to ASTM D 7158, or to ASTM D 3161 where the brand is outside D 7158's scope. It means a bid written for an eastside address is not automatically valid on the west side, and it is worth asking any bidder which zone they priced.
Plank decking, most likely, and Denver has specific rules about it. No continuous opening between boards may be greater than half an inch regardless of the manufacturer's recommendations, and if the manufacturer requires a smaller gap, the manufacturer's requirement prevails. For asphalt shingles on 1X decking, no opening may exceed six square inches, and openings smaller than that can be covered with 26-gauge metal. Around 60,867 Denver units predate 1940, so this is routine here — we include deck remediation as a line item rather than a surprise.
The five-county metro recorded hail on 140 distinct days between 2015 and 2025, about 12.7 days a year, with 75 separate reports of two inches or larger. Denver County alone had 31 hail days and 143 reports. The largest stone in the metro over that window was three inches at Englewood on 19 June 2018; within Denver County itself it was 2.75 inches at Denver International on 30 May 2024. The peak month is June, then May. And the reference event remains 8 May 2017, which the NOAA record describes as Colorado's most expensive insured catastrophe at around $2.3 billion.
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