What is a change order on a roofing job?

A change order is a written amendment to your roofing contract that adds work and cost after the original agreement is signed. On a roof, it almost always happens the morning of tear-off, when the crew removes the old shingles and can finally see the wood deck underneath. The most common change orders are rotted decking replacement, an unexpected second layer of shingles, and code-required upgrades that were not on the old roof.

How much does it cost to replace rotted roof decking in Minnesota?

In the Twin Cities, replacement of 7/16 inch OSB or 1/2 inch plywood decking typically runs $85 to $150 per 4x8 sheet installed, including the tear-off of the damaged board, disposal, and re-nailing. Board-by-board plank replacement on older homes usually runs $4 to $9 per linear foot. The price should be written into your contract as a unit price before work starts, not decided after the wood is exposed.

How do I avoid a roofing bait and switch?

Require three things in the original contract: a written unit price for decking and any other likely extra, a requirement that all change orders be signed by you in writing before that work is performed, and photo documentation of the condition that triggered the change. A contractor who will not put a decking unit price in writing is leaving room to name the number later, once your roof is open and you have no leverage.

Does insurance pay for rotted decking on a Minnesota hail claim?

Sometimes. Decking damaged by the covered loss itself is normally payable. Decking that is rotted from long-term leaks or age is usually considered wear and tear and is excluded. Either way, the process is the same: the condition gets photographed and documented the day it is found, the documentation goes to your carrier as a supplement request, and the carrier decides what it will pay. Anything the carrier declines is a homeowner cost, which is why the unit price needs to be agreed in advance.

Can I cancel a roofing contract in Minnesota after I sign it?

Yes. Minnesota gives you 72 hours to cancel a residential home improvement contract signed at your home. Wisconsin allows 3 business days. If the contract is tied to an insurance claim, Minnesota law also lets you cancel within 72 hours after your insurer denies the claim in whole or in part. The cancellation notice is required to appear in the contract itself.

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Roofing Change Orders in Minnesota: What Can Raise Your Price After You Sign

11 min read · By Luis Hernandez, Owner · MN BC#809688

Nobody knows what is under your shingles. Not me, not the adjuster, not the guy who knocked on your door last week. We can look in the attic, we can walk the roof, we can read the soft spots underfoot. But the wood deck is covered by the very thing we are about to remove, and the honest answer on bid day is always the same: we will know for certain the morning of tear-off. A change order is what happens when the answer is bad. Handled right, it is a boring signature and a fair number. Handled wrong, it is how people get taken.

Key Takeaways

Most roof replacements have no change order at all. The ones that do are usually decking, a hidden second layer, or code upgrades.
The protection is not "trust me." It is a unit price written into the contract before work starts.
An unusually low bid with no decking allowance is the classic setup for a mid-job price jump.
On a storm claim, added decking and code items often go to your carrier as a supplement. You file it, the carrier decides.
Minnesota gives you 72 hours to cancel a home improvement contract signed at your home.

What a Change Order Actually Is

A change order is a written amendment to your contract that adds work, adds cost, or both, after you have already signed. It is a normal document in construction. It exists because no one can price what they cannot see.

On a roof, the moment of truth is tear-off. The crew strips the old shingles and the underlayment, and for the first time in twenty or thirty years the wood deck is exposed. Everything that was hidden is suddenly visible: the water stains, the delaminated OSB, the board that flexes when you step on it, the previous layer someone shingled over in 1998.

At that point one of two things happens. Either your contract already said what that repair costs per unit and you sign a short amendment with the count filled in, or your contractor names a number while your house is open to the sky. The first is a change order. The second is leverage.

The difference between a fair change order and a bait and switch is not what gets found. It is whether the price was agreed before anyone knew how much of it there was.

The Five Things That Actually Trigger One in Minnesota

1. Rotted or Delaminated Decking

This is the big one, and Minnesota is hard on roof decks. Ice dams push meltwater backward under the shingles at the eaves. Bath fans vented into the attic instead of through the roof dump warm moist air onto the underside of the sheathing all winter. Old nail holes weep. The result is soft, swollen, or crumbling wood along the eaves, in the valleys, and around penetrations.

Delaminated OSB is the one homeowners are most surprised by. It looks fine from the attic. Once it is exposed, the layers have separated like a wet paperback and it will not hold a nail. Shingling over it voids the manufacturer warranty and guarantees a callback.

We do not know the count until we see it. We do know the price per sheet, and so should you, before we start.

2. A Second Layer Nobody Disclosed

Minnesota code allows a maximum of two layers of asphalt shingles. Plenty of Twin Cities homes have exactly two because someone in the past overlaid instead of tearing off. From the ground, and often from the roof, a second layer is invisible. We check the rake edge and lift a shingle at the eave when we bid, which catches most of it, but partial overlays on a single slope do happen.

A second layer means double the tear-off labor and roughly double the disposal weight. If the bid assumed one layer, that is a real cost that has to land somewhere. (This is one of several reasons we tell people never to shingle over an existing roof.)

3. Code-Required Upgrades That Were Not on the Old Roof

Minnesota code has moved. Your 1994 roof was legal in 1994. Replacing it today means bringing the assembly current, and several of those items may simply not exist on your house right now:

Ice and water shield at the eaves, run far enough up the slope to reach past the interior wall line. On a wide-overhang rambler that can be two courses instead of one.
Drip edge at all eaves and rakes, which many older Twin Cities homes never had.
Balanced ventilation, meaning enough intake at the soffit to match the exhaust at the ridge. Adding a ridge vent without opening the soffits makes ventilation worse, not better.
Proper flashing at walls and chimneys instead of the roof tar someone smeared on ten years ago.

A good bid includes these from the start. If a bid you are comparing is conspicuously cheap, check whether it lists ice and water shield by name and by coverage area. That single line explains a lot of price gaps in this market.

4. Rot Behind the Fascia, Soffit, or Chimney

Once the drip edge and the first course come off, the top of the fascia board is visible. On homes with long-term gutter overflow or ice dam history, the fascia and the ends of the rafter tails can be soft. Same story at chimneys, where failed counterflashing lets water into the framing.

This is less common than decking but more expensive when it appears, because it is carpentry rather than sheet goods. It should also be priced by the linear foot in advance.

5. Upgrades You Choose Mid-Job

This one is the happy version. The roof is open, the staging is up, and the incremental cost of adding something now is far lower than doing it later: a ridge vent, new pipe boots in a different color, a skylight that was already at end of life, gutters while the fascia is exposed. These are optional and they are entirely your call. They are still change orders and they should still be written down.

What These Should Cost in the Twin Cities

These are the ranges we see across Anoka and Hennepin County work in 2026. Your bid should contain numbers in this neighborhood, written as unit prices, before anyone touches your roof.

Item	Typical unit price installed	What drives the range
Decking, 4x8 sheet (7/16 OSB or 1/2 plywood)	$85 to $150 per sheet	Pitch, story height, whether the sheet is at a valley or eave, disposal
Plank decking (board-by-board on older homes)	$4 to $9 per linear foot	Board width, access, matching thickness to the surrounding deck
Second layer tear-off	$40 to $75 per square	Extra labor plus roughly double dumpster weight
Fascia board replacement	$8 to $18 per linear foot	1x6 vs 1x8, wrap or paint, gutter detach and reset
Rafter tail repair	$75 to $200 each	Sistering vs full replacement, soffit removal
Chimney flashing rebuild	$450 to $1,400	Masonry condition, whether the counterflashing must be cut into the mortar

A note on decking specifically. Some contractors advertise a low per-sheet price and then count generously. Others price fairly and count honestly. The protection against both is the same and it is simple: photos of every board replaced, and a count you can verify. We photograph the deck before and after, and the photos come to you with the change order, not after the invoice.

The Storm Claim Version Is Different

If your roof is being replaced on an insurance claim, a change order does not automatically mean money out of your pocket. It means a documentation step.

Here is the actual sequence, and it matters that you understand it, because contractors who blur this step are the ones who get homeowners in trouble:

We find the condition and photograph it the day it is exposed, with a date stamp and enough context to show where it is on the roof.
We write it up as a supplement request with the documentation attached, in the same line-item format your adjuster's estimate uses.
You submit it to your carrier, or authorize us to send our documentation into your claim file.
Your carrier decides what it will pay. We do not negotiate your claim and we cannot promise an outcome. That is your insurer's call, and in Minnesota only a licensed public adjuster can represent you in that negotiation.

Decking damaged by the covered loss is generally payable. Decking that rotted over fifteen years from an ice dam is usually treated as wear and tear and excluded. Code-required upgrades may be covered if your policy carries Ordinance or Law coverage, which is worth checking on your declarations page. We cover that in detail in our Minnesota roof insurance claim guide and in the piece on recoverable depreciation.

Whatever the carrier declines is a homeowner cost. Which brings us right back to the same rule: the unit price needs to be in the contract, agreed in advance, so that the only open question is the count.

How to Bulletproof Your Contract Before You Sign

Ask every bidder these six questions

"What is your per-sheet price for decking replacement, and is it in the contract?" If the answer is "we'll let you know if we find any," that is not an answer. Get the number in writing.
"Does your bid include an allowance for decking, or is it all extra?" Some contractors build in two or three sheets. Some build in zero. Two bids can differ by a thousand dollars for this reason alone and look identical on the front page.
"Will you photograph anything you replace and send me the photos with the change order?" The answer should be yes without hesitation.
"Will any change order be signed by me in writing before that work is performed?" This is the single most important sentence in the contract. It converts a surprise invoice into a decision you make.
"Does the bid include ice and water shield, drip edge, and ventilation to current Minnesota code?" If those are not itemized, they may show up later as change orders.
"How many layers are on my roof right now, and how did you check?" A contractor who lifted a shingle at the eave will tell you. One who bid from a satellite image cannot.

What the Contract Itself Should Say

Unit prices for decking, fascia, and rafter repair, listed as line items even if the quantity is zero.
A clause requiring your written approval on any change order before the work is performed.
Photo documentation as a condition of billing for concealed-condition repairs.
The Minnesota cancellation notice. State law requires it to appear in the contract, and it gives you 72 hours to cancel a home improvement agreement signed at your home. In Wisconsin the window is 3 business days. On an insurance job, Minnesota also allows cancellation within 72 hours after your insurer denies the claim in whole or in part.
A named license number. Ours is MN BC#809688 and WI 4298-DCFR. You can verify any Minnesota contractor's license through the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

Warning Signs of a Real Bait and Switch

Legitimate change orders and predatory ones look different from the beginning. The pattern is almost always visible at bid time, not at tear-off:

The bid is dramatically lower than everyone else's and the contractor cannot point to a specific reason why. Underbidding on purpose and making it up in extras is a business model.
Decking is not mentioned anywhere in the contract, in either direction. No allowance, no unit price, no clause.
The contract has a broad "unforeseen conditions" clause with no dollar limit and no approval requirement.
They want a large deposit before materials are ordered. Our terms are 25 percent at signing, 50 percent at material delivery, 25 percent at completion, and the Minnesota Attorney General's office generally discourages large up-front deposits.
The change order shows up as a line on the final invoice that you never saw or signed.
They offer to "take care of" or absorb your insurance deductible. Walk away from this one immediately. Under Minnesota Statute 325E.66 it is illegal, and you would be signing your name to it.

How We Handle It

Every Northern Forge roofing contract carries the decking unit price on the front page whether we expect to use it or not. When the deck comes into view, here is what happens:

Work stops on that section. Nothing gets covered up.
Every bad board is photographed in place, with the count marked.
You get a text with the photos and the math, at the unit price you already agreed to. On an insurance job, the same package goes into the claim documentation.
Nothing proceeds until you say yes in writing.

I am on every job site, so this conversation is with the owner, not a subcontractor with an incentive to pad a count. Most of the time the number is small and the whole exchange takes four minutes. Occasionally a roof is worse than anyone hoped, and then at least you are making a real decision with real photos in front of you.

Frequently Asked Questions

How common are change orders on a roof replacement?

Most roofs we replace need no decking at all, or one to three sheets, which is a minor line. Homes with a long ice dam history, prior overlays, or a bath fan venting into the attic are the ones that tend to need more. Age alone is a weaker predictor than moisture history.

Can I refuse a change order?

You can refuse optional upgrades outright. You cannot really refuse structural repairs, because no reputable contractor will nail new shingles to wood that will not hold a nail, and doing so voids the manufacturer's material warranty. What you can do is get a second opinion on the count, which is exactly why the photos matter.

Why can't a contractor just tell me the decking cost up front?

They can tell you the price per sheet up front, and they should. What nobody can tell you up front is the quantity, because the wood is underneath the roof being removed. Any contractor who guarantees a flat number sight unseen has either padded the bid to cover the worst case or is planning to bill you later.

What if I already signed and got hit with a surprise charge?

Ask for the photo documentation and the unit math in writing. Compare it to your signed contract. If the contract required your written approval before extra work and you never gave it, say so in writing. Minnesota homeowners can file a complaint with the Department of Labor and Industry, which licenses residential contractors, and with the Attorney General's office.

Will replacing decking delay my roof?

Rarely by more than a few hours on a typical home. We carry sheathing on the truck for exactly this reason. Wide-scale replacement on a large or steep roof can add a day.

Does new decking improve my roof?

Yes, meaningfully. Fasteners only hold as well as the wood they are driven into, and wind uplift ratings assume a sound deck. Replacing failed sheathing is one of the few extras that genuinely buys you performance rather than appearance.

Want a Bid With the Numbers Already In It?

Every estimate I write includes the decking unit price on the front page, whether we expect to use it or not. Free inspection, no pressure, and you get the photos either way.

(320) 523-6743 Schedule Free Inspection