Last updated: September 20, 2026
Roofs are measured from USGS aerial LiDAR flown September 2023 to August 2024, about 16 points per square meter, and Ada and Canyon County aerial imagery flown 2025 at 3 inch resolution. AI separates patio covers and neighbors' roofs from yours, you can correct the outline by tapping it, and the price is an itemized estimate from a price book last updated September 2026, shown as a narrow range. A local roofing pro measures on site before any contract.
The US Geological Survey flew the Treasure Valley with airborne LiDAR between September 2023 to August 2024 and published the data in January 2026 (USGS 3DEP ID_SouthernGaps_2_D23). It records about 16 height measurements per square meter, enough to see every plane of a roof, its slope and where the ridges, hips and valleys run. We fit flat planes to the points over your parcel and turn them into the roof's true surface area, pitch and edge lengths. This is where the square footage comes from. Source: USGS 3D Elevation Program, ID_SouthernGaps_2_D23.
Ada County and Canyon County each flew new aerial imagery in 2025 at 3 inch pixels. That is the picture you see with the roof outline drawn on it, and it is the input for the next step. Emmett (Gem County) and Mountain Home (Elmore County) sit outside that imagery, so their estimates come from aerial imagery alone and are labeled that way. Sources: Ada County Imagery 2025 (ACHD image service); Canyon County 2025 3-inch imagery (CC_2025_3in image service).
A patio cover, carport, gazebo, shed or a neighbor's roof should not be in your count. Three checks decide: the LiDAR heights (a cover sits below the eave of the roof it touches), an image model that finds separate roof structures in the photo and compares their material with the main roof, and a vision model that can only remove a section or flag it for review, never add one back. Anything removed is drawn dashed so you can see it.
Tap any highlighted section to take it out, or any dashed one to put it back, and the area and price update. If the wrong building was picked, tap outside it to measure again. We log every correction, because it tells us where the automatic rules get it wrong.
A LiDAR-measured roof is shown as one number with its squares (a square is 100 square feet), with a one-line confidence note built from the pipeline: how many LiDAR points the roof planes were fit to, how many facets, and whether any region was flagged for a look on site. The estimate is shown as a narrow range: each line is a measured quantity multiplied by a price from the price book, and you can open the itemized breakdown under it. The range is the price book's own low and high for the chosen product where it lists one (GAF Timberline HDZ is $380 to $410 per square installed), otherwise the measurement tolerance below; both ends round to the nearest $50. Waste is not a flat percentage; it is 8 percent plus 1 percent for every foot of hip and valley per square, from the measured edge graph, capped at 20 percent. An estimate from aerial imagery alone has no edge graph and uses 12 percent.
The price book (last updated September 2026) holds an installed price per square for each product, from GAF Royal Sovereign at $266 through GAF Camelot II at $495, with GAF Timberline HDZ at $380 to $410, and metal from exposed-fastener panels at $425 to standing seam at $775. That per-square price is all-in: installation, tear-off of one existing layer, starter strip, drip edge, ridge cap, ice and water shield, standard flashing, disposal and steep-slope labor up to 8/12. The only separate lines are extra tear-off layers per square, a steep-slope surcharge per square on planes steeper than 8/12 (each plane's pitch is measured), a decking allowance of 2 sheets with more priced per sheet, and the permit. Every figure on every page of this site is calculated from that one book. Roof repairs start from $149.
What the measurement cannot see: how many shingle layers are on the roof, the condition of the decking under them, permit fees, and a particular contractor's own pricing. Those are settled on site by a local roofing pro; Idaho registers rather than licenses general contractors, and you can check that your roofer is registered with the state through the Idaho Contractors Board registration lookup (DOPL).
The LiDAR figures are being validated against contractor invoices and professional roof measurements now. Until that set has results, we do not publish an accuracy figure; on synthetic test roofs the method lands within a few percent of the true area, and on the one real house checked so far it agreed with an independent aerial measurement to within two percent. This section will show the real number when the validation set has it.
Houses built after the September 2023 to August 2024 flight, and parcels the flight did not cover, are estimated from aerial imagery instead. Those estimates are labeled "Estimated from aerial imagery" in the tool and in your email, and any cached imagery data for them is deleted after 30 days.
Questions about any of this: quotes@roofingquotepro.com. See also who runs RoofingQuotePro and who pays.