Roofing contractors in Bengaluru: what a roof costs, and what to do about a leak

The cheapest way is a local fabrication shop with a plain metal sheet. No Bengaluru fabricator publishes a rate for it, so we added one up: a colour-coated sheet at ₹55 to ₹110 a sq ft from a dealer, a simple steel frame at about ₹100 from a panel maker's example, and Bengaluru labour at ₹50 to ₹95 from a cost calculator site. You give up a drawing, a written warranty and, often, the gutter.

Published prices disagree three to ten times, because most are for the material alone and come from sellers outside Bengaluru. Read each for what it covers:

The ten-times gap on Mangalore tile is the tile seller's figure against the content site's. The seller's looks low for relaying an old roof, and the content site's looks like a full new roof. Get three written quotes for your own roof.

What people here planned to spend: three budgets sent to us for a terrace or balcony roof work out to about ₹420 to ₹660 a sq ft, by our sum.

Three quotes a sq ft that are far apart are often three different jobs: the sheet alone, a sheet on a light frame, and a heavier roof with its frame. Ingenium Designs' ₹200 and Misty Garden Weldscape's ₹550 don't compare either: the first is a polycarbonate sheet on a frame you already have, the second an insulated roof with a new welded frame.

• The frame. Some fabricators price the steel by the kilo, and a thinner pipe makes a lower quote. Misty Garden Weldscape's frames are 12 and 14 gauge steel with one coat of primer and one of paint. Ask for the pipe size and gauge on the quote.
• The area. A sloping roof has more sheet than the floor under it, and some builders bill for cutting waste: on one Misty Garden Weldscape job, an 88 sq ft balcony was billed as 95 sq ft of glass. Ask which area the rate is on.
• The lines on top. Ingenium Designs charged ₹6,000 to carry material up to a terrace and ₹5,000 to clear the old roof on one job, with 18% GST on the invoice. Across three Misty Garden Weldscape quotes, labour ran ₹7,000 to ₹13,000 and transport ₹3,000 to ₹6,000, more for a terrace with an old roof to take down. Plumbing and civil work are extra there.
• The gutter. It's often left off the first quote. Without it, the water lands on your floor or the neighbour's wall.

Keep the last payment until it has rained. Misty Garden Weldscape takes 50% to confirm, 40% during the work and 10% at handover, with the quote valid 30 days. Before you pay the last part, run a hose over the roof and look for drips.

Who to call. For a sheet roof, the fabricator who put it up, or a fabrication shop near you. For a tile roof, a tile roofer: ask a neighbour whose tile roof was redone recently, or the shop you buy the tiles from. For a leaking flat concrete terrace, a waterproofing contractor. The roof builders on mytribe put up new roofs and have no repair work on file with us, so we can't send you one for this.

What a repair costs. No Bengaluru roofer publishes a price for a repair, so ask for a written quote that names each spot. What we can give you: a roofer's day costs about ₹300 to ₹1,000 in a big city by one roofing maker's figures, and a new Mangalore tile ₹40 to ₹55 (₹60 to ₹85 for a better one) from a Yelahanka tile seller.

Where a sheet roof lets water in

Tap a number to see what it is and what it costs.

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1. 1

   The roof sheet

   ₹550 a sq ft

   What a new 30 mm puff sheet roof with its frame opens at, on Misty Garden Weldscape's quotes. The sheet itself rarely leaks

   Add to my request: The roof sheet
2. 2

   The joints and the screws

   Ask

   Where most sheet roofs leak. Ask how the overlaps are sealed and how many screws hold each sheet

   Add to my request: The joints and the screws
3. 3

   The steel frame

   In the ₹550

   12 and 14 gauge steel with one coat of primer and one of paint on their quotes. Rust starts at the welds

   Add to my request: The steel frame
4. 4

   The roof's low edge

   Ask

   Ask whether a gutter and a down pipe are in the quote, and where the water goes

   Add to my request: The roof's low edge
5. 5

   The posts

   Ask

   Bolts into the floor can go through the terrace waterproofing. Ask how the holes are sealed

   Add to my request: The posts

• Where the wall meets the roof needs its own metal strip or sealant. Without it, water runs down the wall and in under the edge.
• A stain on the ceiling is a clue, and the hole is often somewhere else: water runs along the frame before it drips.
• A leak near wiring or a fan point: switch that circuit off and call the electrician first.

On an old Mangalore tile roof, a new tile may not sit right beside a sixty-year-old one, and some old tiles break as they come off. Second-hand tiles are sold, so take one of yours to match the size. If the wood underneath is sagging or eaten, fixing it means taking the tiles off: then ask for a thin sheet under the tiles when they go back.

Work done in the dry months can't be tested until the first heavy rain. Keep part of the money until then, or get a written promise to come back.

A room under a puff sheet

Opaque and insulated. ₹550 a sq ft with the frame

A sit-out under glass

Daylight and the sky. ₹850 to ₹950 with the frame

Nobody measures the heat or the rain noise. A Rajajinagar fabricator says puff panels keep a room 8 to 12 degrees cooler than plain metal sheet, with no test shown. Before you pick, ask to stand under a roof they've built, in the rain if you can.

If you'll sit, work or sleep under it, pay for insulation at the start. A ceiling or an insulated sheet added later means taking the roof apart.

Tile and glass are heavy, so ask whether the frame is sized for them, and have the slab looked at before they go on it.

Polycarbonate and glass show every leaf and bird dropping from below, and you can't walk on polycarbonate to clean it. On a terrace that's a ladder job.

A roof on posts in the garden or on the terrace is a pergola. mytribe's pergola guide covers its roofs, frames and leaks.

The big mills' colour-coated sheet runs about ₹50 to ₹125 a sq ft wholesale, by brand and by thickness from 0.35 to 0.55 mm, in bulk orders of 5 to 10 tonnes. Retail is 20 to 40% higher. Those are a Haryana distributor's figures, so treat them as a guide to the gap between thicknesses.

The maker's warranty covers the sheet rusting through. A leak at a screw, an overlap or the wall is the fitter's work, and many fitters give nothing in writing for it. Ask for the fitter's promise on leaks in writing, with how long it lasts.

The most expensive metal roofs use a different shape of sheet, called standing seam, with the clips hidden in the seam so no screw goes through the sheet. A Nelamangala roll-former sells it, but we found no price for a house.

How to pick:

• Stand under a roof they've built, and ask that owner how it did in the last monsoon.
• Get the sheet's brand and thickness, the pipe size and the gutter written on the quote (questions 2 and 5).
• Ask who comes back if it leaks, and get it in writing.
• Keep the last payment until it has rained.

The two roof builders on mytribe work differently. Ingenium Designs takes a roof on its own, fitted on a frame that already stands, with no steel work. They give a rough figure on the first call, visit free in the city, and charge ₹999 to ₹1,999 for a site 40 to 50 km out. A small job can wait when the team is busy. Misty Garden Weldscape builds the frame and the roof new, welded on your site, for jobs from ₹1,00,000.

How long it takes. Neither builder here gave us a number of days, so ask for one in writing. A Jalahalli fabricator's site says one to two weeks for a standard house roof. If you need cover sooner, ask for the roof first and the sides later, as one Whitefield customer did.

Will anyone stop me? We found no case of a terrace sheet roof being acted on. In 2021 the city warned apartment owners that adding structures after the occupancy certificate, such as covering a balcony, breaks the rules, as a news report put it. A law firm's note on a High Court ruling says the city has to serve a notice before it demolishes a building put up without plan approval. If you get one, ask for it in writing. Paying to make it go away doesn't make the roof legal.

Plan around the terrace before the frame goes up. A roof can shade the solar water heater and block the way to the water tank.