For roofing contractors
Four addresses by Thursday.Nobody drives back for paper.
Roofing is a throughput business. The paperwork problem is not that any single job is complicated — it is that you are running six of them at once, the crew is somewhere else tomorrow, and the folder that matters is in the wrong truck.
- Permits: Roofing permit card
- Approved plans: Roof plan — tear-off scope
- Engineering: Underlayment + fastening spec
- Inspections: Deck nailing inspection — passed
- Engineering: Shingle product data sheet
↑ What one scan puts in a phone. Example content — your job page shows your files.
Volume, not depth
Why roofing is differentA roof is not a complicated document set. There is a permit, usually a short scope or roof plan, the manufacturer's installation spec, and whatever the inspector writes down. Compared with a ground-up build it is thin. What makes it hard is the rate: a roofing outfit can start and finish more jobs in a month than a custom builder finishes in a year, and every one of them needs the same five pieces of paper in a different place.
That rate is what breaks the physical permit box. A box works when a crew stands in front of it for eight weeks. It does not work when the crew is at a new address every day or two, when a supplement changes the scope on Wednesday, or when the tear-off crew and the inspector show up on different mornings and neither of them has met you.
A QR placard fixes the part that scales badly. The documents live in one place and travel to whoever is standing on the roof, so nothing depends on a specific person having a specific folder in a specific truck. Post it on the job, and it is handled for the life of the job.
Where the paper falls off the roof
Four failure modesThe crew rotated
Whoever tore off the roof on Tuesday is on another street by Wednesday, and the man who shows up to dry it in has never seen the scope. He calls you. You are on a ladder. That call costs both of you fifteen minutes and it happens on every job.
The scope moved
Decking comes off, the sheathing is worse than the estimate, and the job changes. Now there is a revised scope, and the copy in the truck is the old one. Somebody installs to a sheet nobody meant to build from.
The box did not survive
A permit box on a roofing job spends its life on a stake in the front yard while a dumpster gets dragged past it. Between weather, wind, and the tear-off, the paper inside is unreadable long before the final inspection.
The warranty file needs proof
Manufacturer warranties commonly want evidence of what was installed and how. If the underlayment spec and the product data sheets only ever existed as a printout on a job that closed four months ago, assembling that later is guesswork.
One ordinary week
Six arrivals, five addressesNobody in this table works two consecutive days at the same address. Every row is a person arriving somewhere, needing one specific document, and having no way to get it except by calling you. That is the roofing paperwork problem in full — not complexity, just turnover.
| Day | Job site | Who shows up | What they need |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 812 Marden Ave | Tear-off crew | Scope, layer count, dumpster placement |
| Tue | 812 Marden Ave | Dry-in crew | Underlayment spec, revised decking scope |
| Tue | 44 Halloran Ct | Inspector | Permit number, deck nailing detail |
| Wed | 6210 Pine Bluff | Tear-off crew | Scope, engineer letter for sistered rafters |
| Thu | 44 Halloran Ct | Finish crew | Shingle data sheet, ventilation detail |
| Fri | 6210 Pine Bluff | Inspector | Passed in-progress report, permit card |
With a placard on each stake, none of those six arrivals is a phone call. The document each person needs is on the post they are standing next to, in the version you uploaded this morning — including the revised decking scope that only exists because Tuesday went badly.
What a roofing placard carries
The usual five- P — PermitsRoofing permit
- The permit as issued, plus the permit number printed directly on the placard so anyone can read it out over the phone without scanning anything. Many jurisdictions still require the physical permit card to stay posted — keep posting it.
- A — Approved plansScope and roof plan
- The tear-off scope, layer count, and any roof plan or slope diagram. When a supplement changes it, upload the new version and hide the old one — the page shows one current scope, not a pile.
- E — EngineeringInstallation spec and product data
- Underlayment, ice-and-water placement, fastening pattern, ventilation, and the shingle or membrane data sheet. This is the set a crew leader actually opens on the roof, and the one your warranty file will want later.
- I — InspectionsInspection results
- In-progress inspections such as deck nailing or dry-in, plus the final. The next crew can check whether the previous stage passed before they load the truck instead of after they arrive.
- E — EngineeringStructural letters
- When rafters get sistered, decking gets replaced over a span, or a mount goes through the deck, whatever an engineer wrote goes here — so the inspector can find it without a call to your office.
How it fits a roofing week
Three steps, once per job- 01
Create the job at sale
Address, permit number, scope, spec sheets. It takes about as long as writing the work order, and it happens once — before anyone is on the roof.
- 02
Placard goes out with the sign
Print it, sleeve it, and stake it in the yard alongside the posted permit. It is one sheet of letter paper, so a stack of them rides in the truck.
- 03
Archive when the final passes
Archived jobs stop counting toward your plan but their page stays live, so a warranty claim two years out still resolves to the spec you installed to.
General notes
This does not replace the permit you are required to post
Many building departments require the permit card itself to be physically posted and visible from the street for the duration of the work, and some also want a printed set on site. Keep doing that. What DryPlans replaces is the box of scope sheets, specs, and inspection reports underneath it — the part that gets wet and goes out of date. Requirements vary between jurisdictions, so confirm what yours expects with your building department.
Roofing questions
Straight answers- We run several roofs at once. Do we need a placard for each?
- Yes — one job site, one QR code, one page. That is the point: the code on the stake at 812 Marden opens the documents for 812 Marden and nothing else, so a crew cannot end up reading the wrong scope. Plans are priced by how many job sites are live at the same time, and archiving a finished roof frees the slot for the next one.
- Our jobs last two days. Is this worth setting up?
- Short jobs are the case for it, not against it. The setup is one-time and happens at sale; the payoff is every call you do not take while a crew stands on a roof waiting to be told what the scope says. If a job genuinely needs nothing but a permit card, do not make a page for it.
- Can the homeowner see it too?
- Anyone who scans the code sees the page — there is no login, which is what makes it work for subs and inspectors. Homeowners typically end up scanning it too, and that is usually a good thing. Every document has a visibility toggle, so anything you would rather they not read simply stays hidden.
- What about photos of the deck before we cover it?
- Upload them like any other document. JPEG, PNG, HEIC, and PDF all work, so the condition photos that back up a supplement live in the same place as the spec they justify.
Other trades
Same placard, different paperworkPrint one placard.Stake it in one yard.
First job site is free and stays free. If the phone stops ringing on that one roof, you already know whether it works on the other five.