Provo, UT
A converted house does not have the roof the original house had
Change what a structure is used for and you change what is bolted to it. New vent stacks, a second flue, an added exhaust, a framed opening for escape, a stair and entry cover on an elevation the street never sees, and frequently an addition whose roof was never built to the same specification as the one it ties into. Every one of those is a scope item and a matching question. A carrier estimate written off one roof type and the front of the house prices a building that is not standing there.
By Kyle Hamrick, Founder
Two structures with identical square footage and identical street frontage can carry completely different roofs once one of them has been altered and the other has not. The scope follows what is physically fastened to the building, confirmed against the document that actually governs an alteration at that address, and never against a template built for a structure in its original configuration.
The Estimate Company is run by a licensed independent insurance adjuster, with claims experience across many states, writing for contractors nationwide. What we bring to a Provo file is code mechanism, carrier behavior, and claim pattern, confirmed for the address rather than assumed from a statewide rule. More about Kyle.
What an alteration puts on a roof, and why a single-assembly estimate misses it
Terminations arrive after the deck is finished
A structure built with one kitchen, one heating appliance, and one laundry gets one set of penetrations, all of them designed into the framing and flashed while the covering was being installed. Add a second cooking group, a second bathing group, a second heating or cooling appliance, or a separate laundry, and each one needs its own path out. Plumbing vent stacks come up through the field. A flue or an exhaust termination comes through the field or the wall above it. A condenser and its line set land wherever the alteration could find room, which on a completed building is rarely where a designer would have put them.
Every one of those is a hole cut into a roof that was already built and already weathered. The flashing at each one was field applied instead of sequenced, the sealant joint has aged on its own timeline, and the sheathing immediately around it has been carrying the consequences quietly. That is why the count has to happen on the roof. An estimate that derives a boot and collar quantity from the number of units an address is listed as having gets a number that describes paperwork, not the deck.
The city rule that decides where the added structure goes
Provo's published accessory dwelling unit requirements are unusually specific about appearance, and the specificity has a physical consequence. The home must continue to appear to be a one-family dwelling. There shall be only one front door visible from the front yard. Any new entrances shall be on the side or rear of the home. The city's accessory dwelling unit page states the same thing from the other direction: outside entrances can only be on the side or rear of the building, and the unit cannot alter the appearance of the structure as a single-family detached dwelling.
Read that as a construction instruction rather than a zoning note and it tells you where to look. The added entry, its stair, its landing, its cover, and often the addition roof itself are all required to sit off the street elevation. Provo's own requirements also allow the unit to be created over a garage, inside the dwelling, or by an addition to the dwelling, which means the added roof area is frequently over the garage or across the back. A scope assembled from front-elevation photographs or a quick aerial pass is reading the one face of the building the ordinance deliberately left looking unchanged.
The roof claim inspection checklist is the field sequence for getting the side and rear elevations, every termination, and each change of plane documented while the covering is still on and the differences between the assemblies are still visible.
Two roof systems, one address, one price list line
An addition built to serve added occupied space is rarely a continuation of the original roof. It is a shed or a hip run off the back or over the garage, framed to whatever span the existing structure allowed, pitched to whatever the eave height left available, and covered with whatever the market carried in the year it went up. Two assemblies now share one address. The low-slope section takes a different underlayment and a different fastening pattern than the steeper field above it, the two meet at a roof-to-wall junction that needs step flashing and a counterflashing detail into cladding that was originally an exterior finish, and the ventilation path through the older attic no longer matches the volume behind it.
A carrier estimate written off a single covering type resolves all of that by pretending it is not there. The addition becomes extra squares of the primary roof, the junction becomes nothing at all, and the ventilation stays at whatever the original permit called for. The correction is not a negotiation. It is carrying two specifications in the file because the building carries two assemblies, and pricing the seam between them as the separate scope of work it actually is.
The permit trigger, the design table, and two published lists that do not agree
Changing occupancy and installing a system are separate permitted events
Provo's own building FAQ quotes the adopted residential code directly. Under the 2021 International Residential Code Section R105.1, as the city publishes it, an owner or authorized agent intending to construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish or change the occupancy of a structure, or to erect, install, enlarge, alter, repair, remove, convert or replace any electrical, gas, mechanical or plumbing system regulated by the code, has to apply to the building official and obtain the required permit. On an altered building that is two triggers running at once, and the second one is the useful one: the mechanical and plumbing systems whose terminations are sitting on the roof are each their own permitted work. Verify with local building dept Confirm the permit record for the address before asserting what the alteration was reviewed under.
The city publishes design criteria, and the altered area answers to them too
Provo publishes a structural design requirements table for the city, stated on its own page as taken from the 2021 International Building Code. Two cells on it carry weight on an alteration file: a ground snow load of 31 pounds, and an ice barrier underlayment requirement of yes. Neither of those is a statement about the weather. They are the values a roof area at this address is designed against, and a section built later, to a different span, under a different reviewer, does not automatically satisfy them just because the primary roof does. Verify with local building dept Pull the current criteria and any adopted exception for the parcel before either figure goes into a supplement in writing.
An existing building code appears on one published list and not the other
Utah County Community Development publishes an adopted list covering unincorporated Utah County that names the State Construction Code under Utah Code Title 15A and amendments, a 2024 International Building Code, a 2021 International Residential Code, and an International Existing Building Code 2024. The City of Provo's own code FAQ lists the 2021 family and does not carry an existing building code at all, while the city's building page separately announces that the State adopted the 2024 Utah Building Code July 1, 2026. An existing building code is the book that governs alteration, addition, and change of occupancy in a structure that is already standing, which is exactly the work this page is about, so whether it is on the list you are writing to is not a technicality. Verify with local building dept Establish which published list the reviewer applies to the alteration before citing any section from either one.
The carriers writing Provo, and what an altered structure has to prove
The residential volume landing on Provo and wider Utah County addresses is written largely by State Farm, USAA, Farmers, Safeco, Auto-Owners, and American Family. Nothing about how any of them handles a claim shifts when the address changes. What shifts is the building underneath it. A desk working from a price list and an aerial has a model of a house in mind, and that model has one roof plane family, one set of terminations, and a front door on the front. The altered structure breaks all three, quietly, on the two elevations the model never looks at.
The recurring gap on an altered Provo file is a scope that resolves ambiguity in favor of simplicity: one covering type applied across two assemblies, a termination count taken from an aerial rather than a walk, a roof-to-wall junction that never appears because the addition was treated as more of the same roof, and ventilation left at whatever the original construction was permitted for. None of those is an argument about severity. Each is an argument about what is standing there, which is why photo documentation of the side and rear elevations, taken before tear off, decides more of these files than any narrative does. The reinspection supplement is the route for a file that stalls once that evidence is assembled, and where a holdback has already trimmed the payout before the second assembly was ever acknowledged, depreciation recovery runs on its own separate footing.
What gets recovered on a Provo roof file
Ordered by how often the item is missing when a file reaches our desk.
Status key: In scope. Usually omitted. Code driven. Verify with the authority having jurisdiction. Every status is spelled out in words beside the item, so nothing depends on color.
Every roof termination counted on the building, not on the original floor plan
In scope
Adding a cooking group, a bathing group, a second heating appliance, or a separate laundry to a structure that had one of each puts new vent stacks, flue terminations, and exhaust hoods through a deck that was framed and covered before any of them existed. Walk the field and count what is actually standing there, because the count that produces the right boot, collar, and flashing quantities is the one taken on the roof, never the one inferred from how many units the address is listed as having.
Roof over a side or rear addition priced as its own assembly
In scope
Provo's own accessory dwelling unit requirements allow the unit to be created over a garage, inside the dwelling, or by an addition to the dwelling, and separately require that any new entrances sit on the side or the rear. The physical result is a roof area that was built at a different time, to a different span, and often at a different pitch than the primary roof it ties into. Priced as extra squares of the main roof, it comes in low on labor and wrong on material before anybody looks at the tie-in.
Covering, pitch, and underlayment mismatch between the primary roof and a later addition
In scope
Two roof systems on one structure is a matching and a method question at the same time. A low-slope shed roof over a rear addition does not take the same underlayment or the same fastening pattern as the steeper primary field it dies into, and the correct scope carries two specifications rather than averaging them into one. Estimates written off a single covering type resolve the conflict by ignoring it, which shows up as a shortfall on the smaller assembly every time.
Ice barrier membrane carried across the added roof area, not just the original field
Code driven
The City of Provo publishes its structural design requirements and lists the ice barrier underlayment requirement as yes for this city, drawn from the 2021 International Building Code. That requirement attaches to eaves, and a side or rear addition brought its own eaves with it. Scoping membrane to the footprint of the house as originally built leaves the newest and lowest eave on the building, usually the one over the added entry, running bare.
Flashing and counterflashing where an added roof plane dies into an original wall
Usually omitted
An addition roof terminating against the existing exterior wall of the primary structure needs step flashing up the slope and a counterflashing detail let into or over whatever cladding that wall carries, and on a wall that was never designed to be an interior roof-to-wall junction the original cladding frequently has to be opened to do it correctly. That is its own line with its own labor. Nothing about it is contained in a per-square field price.
Dormer or enlarged opening framed to satisfy an added unit's escape requirement
Code driven
Provo's published accessory unit requirements set emergency escape openable area at 5.0 square feet at or below ground level and 5.7 square feet above ground level, with sill height not exceeding 44 inches. Meeting that on an upper level or over a garage routinely means a dormer or a widened head, which is framing, sheathing, valley or saddle flashing, and covering that did not exist on the original roof. Once it exists, it is roof, and a storm reaches it exactly like the rest of the field.
Attic ventilation recalculated for the volume the alteration actually created
Verify with local building dept
Finishing a space under an existing roof or adding conditioned area behind it changes both the vented volume and the path air was supposed to take through it, and intake that was marginal on the original layout stops working once a knee wall or a new ceiling plane is in the way. Confirm the current requirement with the reviewing building department rather than reusing whatever net free area the original construction was permitted for.
Exterior stair, landing, and entry cover on the side or rear elevation
Usually omitted
Because Provo requires new entrances on the side or the rear and requires the building to keep reading as a one-family dwelling from the front yard, the stair and its cover are built where the street cannot see them, and the city's own requirements call for handrails on any interior or exterior stairway with more than three steps. Storm damage to that structure and its covering is real damage on a real part of the building, and it is the first thing missing from a scope built out of front-elevation photographs.
Detach and reset on condensers, line sets, and mounts added at the alteration
Usually omitted
Equipment installed to serve added conditioned space usually lands wherever there was room for it, which on a converted structure means brackets on a rake wall, a pad tight to a rear eave, or a line set run over a low-slope section. Every one of those has to come clear before tear off and go back after, and the removal and reset labor exists whether or not the equipment itself was touched by the loss.
Published snow load design value confirmed for the altered roof area on its own
Verify with local building dept
Provo publishes a ground snow load of 31 pounds in its own structural design requirements, taken from the 2021 International Building Code. What the addition was framed to is a separate question from what the primary roof was framed to, and only one of the two has a permit record most files bother to look for. Confirm the applicable value and any adopted exception with the reviewing department before it goes into a supplement in writing.
Which published adopted-code list the reviewing authority is actually applying
Verify with local building dept
The City of Provo's building page announces the state's adoption of the 2024 Utah Building Code effective July 1, 2026, while the city's own code FAQ still lists the 2021 editions, and Utah County Community Development publishes a different list again for unincorporated county land that includes an International Existing Building Code 2024. Whether an existing building code is on the list decides whether alteration and change of occupancy provisions are even available to argue from, so pin the list before pinning the section.
Overhead and profit driven by trade count on a structure carrying two roof systems
In scope
A single converted structure can put a steep-slope crew on the primary field, a low-slope crew on the addition, a sheet metal detail at the roof-to-wall junction between them, and a mechanical hand pulling and resetting equipment that was added at the alteration, all before any interior work is scheduled. The test is how many trades the building itself forces onto the job, and a structure with two different roof assemblies forces more of them than the same square footage under one continuous plane.
Each becomes a written line with a reason attached, inside a real Xactimate file. Depending on the claim it ships as a roofing supplement, an Xactimate supplement package, a supplemental estimate, or a full claim estimate written from scratch.
What happens to your file after you send it
- 01
The building gets counted before the estimate gets read
We take your measurements and photographs and establish what is physically on that roof right now, every termination, every change of plane, every area built at a different time than the one next to it, and then set the carrier's figure against that instead of against the shape of the original house.
- 02
Alteration and occupancy provisions get sourced from a named publication
Provo publishes its adopted codes, its structural design requirements, and its accessory unit requirements, and Utah County publishes its own list for unincorporated land. We pull the specific document that governs the address, name it in the file, and flag where two published lists disagree rather than quietly picking one.
- 03
The supplement is written in Xactimate and delivered as a PDF
Real file, real price list, real sketch. You get the PDF as the deliverable, and the ESX free any time you ask for it. Retail estimate work with no supplement attached delivers the ESX. Written same day or next day, submitted next day. One to three extra days on large commercial and multi structure work.
- 04
We stay on the file until the carrier answers
Follow up, desk adjuster calls, and reinspection support when the carrier sends someone back out. Response runs about three weeks as a general expectation, and the file does not close on our side because it went quiet on theirs.
Two promises, stated separately
Promise one: the fee
The standard fee is 15 percent of supplemental recovery. If a file produces no additional approved recovery, you pay nothing on that claim. That is the whole fee structure, and it applies claim by claim.
Promise two: the guarantee
Send us an average of 2 claims per week for 12 months. If that volume does not produce a minimum of six figures in additional margin for your company, we write you a $5,000 check at the end of the 12 months. The volume, the 12 month term, the six figure threshold, and the $5,000 figure are one set of terms and they always travel together.
Two different promises, no overlap. The fee describes what a single claim costs you. The guarantee describes what a year of steady volume is worth. Nothing in the fee structure is a guarantee, and the guarantee does not change the fee.
Provo questions we get from contractors
What does an occupancy conversion actually change on a Provo roof?
It puts hardware on the deck that the original structure never carried. A second cooking or bathing group means new plumbing vent stacks terminating through the field. A second heating or cooling system means a flue or an exhaust termination and frequently a condenser with a line set punched through an eave or a wall above the roof line. Separate laundry means a dryer exhaust. Each of those is a hole cut into a roof that was already built, flashed after the fact, and aged on a different clock than the covering around it. A carrier estimate that counts squares off an aerial and stops there has priced a roof with fewer terminations than the building actually has.
Does Provo require a permit to change the occupancy of a structure?
The city publishes the answer in its own building FAQ, quoting the 2021 International Residential Code Section R105.1: an owner or authorized agent intending to construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish or change the occupancy of a structure, or to erect, install, enlarge, alter, repair, remove, convert or replace any electrical, gas, mechanical or plumbing system regulated by the code, has to apply to the building official and obtain the required permit. Read against a converted building, that is two separate triggers, not one. The occupancy change is a permitted event and each mechanical or plumbing system added during the conversion is a permitted event, which means the alterations sitting on that roof are supposed to have a paper trail.
Why do added entrances and additions end up on the side or rear of a Provo house?
Because the city's accessory dwelling unit requirements say so in writing. Provo's published requirements state that the home must continue to appear to be a one-family dwelling, that there shall be only one front door visible from the front yard, and that any new entrances shall be on the side or rear of the home. The city's accessory dwelling unit page repeats it: outside entrances can only be on the side or rear of the building, and the unit cannot alter the appearance of the structure as a single-family detached dwelling. So the added entry, the stair serving it, the landing, the entry cover, and frequently the addition roof itself are all pushed off the street elevation by rule. An estimate built from street-facing photographs is looking at the one elevation the ordinance kept clean.
Which adopted code edition governs a roof alteration on a Provo address?
Confirm it before you cite it, because the published lists do not line up. The City of Provo's building page states that the State adopted the 2024 Utah Building Code July 1, 2026, while the city's own FAQ listing the adopted codes still carries the 2021 family, including the 2021 International Residential Code. Utah County Community Development publishes a separate list for unincorporated Utah County that runs a 2024 International Building Code alongside a 2021 International Residential Code and, notably, an International Existing Building Code 2024 that the city's FAQ list does not carry at all. An existing building code is precisely the book that governs alterations, additions, and changes of occupancy, so whether it is on the list you are writing to changes the argument available on a converted structure.
How much does a supplement typically recover?
On claims where the roof is already approved for full replacement, our own closed files show a median recovery of about $4,000, with half landing between roughly $1,800 and $9,500. Claims that start denied or repair-only run far higher.
How fast is turnaround, and what does it cost?
Estimates are written same day or next day and submitted next day. Larger commercial and multi structure files take one to three extra days, said up front. Carrier response runs about three weeks as a general expectation. The standard fee is 15 percent of supplemental recovery, and a file with no additional approved recovery owes nothing on that claim.
Provo and the Utah market
Provo sits inside the wider Utah market, anchoring Utah County well south of Salt Lake City, which argues its own valley on entirely different ground, with Ogden further north again, Logan in its own valley, and St. George in a desert climate that shares almost nothing with any of them. Files also come in from Orem, Springville, Spanish Fork, Lehi, and unincorporated Utah County land, where the county's own published adopted list, not the city's, is the one the scope has to answer to.
Send one Provo file and let the actual building set the scope
Send the carrier estimate with your measurements, photographs of all four elevations rather than the front, and a note on any part of the roof that was built at a different time than the rest of it. That last detail is the one that changes the scope, because it is the point where one price list line stops describing the building.