Commercial roofing material quotes, drafted from the spec and takeoff for your desk to price.

The package arrives in pieces. There is the Division 07 roofing section, with its membrane, insulation and warranty paragraphs; the roof plan with areas, drains, curbs and edge lengths; a tapered insulation layout if the job has one; and the contractor's takeoff in squares and lineal feet. Somebody reads them against each other, builds the lines, notes what the spec left open, and then prices the result from your costs and that contractor's terms.

In the test, AI reads copies of those documents and drafts the material package: membrane type and thickness, insulation layers and tapered areas, fastener and adhesive lines, flashing and accessories. Every line names the page or paragraph it came from, and a separate list holds what someone must confirm before pricing. The draft carries no price and reaches no contractor.

A membrane line is a type, a thickness and a build. ASTM D6878, the standard specification for thermoplastic polyolefin based sheet roofing, requires a reinforcing fabric or scrim in the sheet, while ASTM D4637 sorts EPDM into unreinforced Type I, internally reinforced Type II and fabric-backed Type III. A TPO section in the Missouri Office of Administration's roof design manual asks for 60 mils nominal on the field sheet and unreinforced flashing of at least 55 mils, so one spec produces two thicknesses. Western Washington University's standard is also 60 mils, and it prefers gray over white for the exposed face. Rolls matter as well: one maker's 80-mil sheet comes 5 to 12 feet wide at 100 feet long, four rolls to a pallet, with a pallet of 12-foot rolls at 2,392 pounds. When the spec leaves roll width open, the draft holds it for your reviewer.

Owners set the layers, and they disagree. The Missouri section calls for two or more layers once the insulation reaches 3 inches, with joints offset at least 6 inches. New Mexico's Public School Facilities Authority, in its adhered TPO section, goes to two layers at 2 inches with joints offset at least 12, and orders flat board in 4-by-8 sheets and tapered board in 4-by-4s. Texas State's Round Rock standard allows no board over 2 inches in a single layer and no board stock larger than 4 by 4 at all. Each rule changes the board count and the bundles. NRCA advised designers in 2010 to specify polyiso by thickness rather than R-value, to head off confusion at purchase, and a spec that names only an R-value leaves someone a conversion to make: Texas State's own figure is 5.6 per inch in service, where a 2014 trade article put the design value for permeable-faced polyiso at 5.7. The draft keeps the spec's wording and leaves that conversion to a person.

Tapered areas have their own drawing and their own alphabet. New Mexico's section slopes saddles and crickets at twice the field slope, puts a cricket on the upslope side of every rectangular penetration wider than 18 inches across the slope, and keeps a drain sump from going steeper than 1 in 12 unless the drawings say otherwise. Panels are bought by letter: one maker's sheet shows AA through FF at an eighth of an inch per foot, X, Y, Z and ZZ at a quarter inch, and Q and QQ at a half, with flat fill of 2 or 4 inches underneath. Texas State's standard names preformed perlite crickets in its summary and then specifies tapered polyiso for crickets in its materials section, the sort of conflict a draft should list rather than settle. Each layout's own panel names go onto the draft, and the fill goes on separate lines.

The deck picks the fastener, and the taper changes its length. New Mexico wants the shortest screw that gets 3/4 inch past the top flange of a steel deck, an inch of embedment in wood, and no quarter-inch hex heads. Texas State asks for at least a half inch into steel and rejects anything long enough to reach the bottom of the flutes. Where a fastening pattern hasn't been approved, its default gives the perimeter one and a half times the field's count and the corners twice, with the perimeter 10 feet in from the edge and each corner a 10-by-10 area. Missouri adds corrosion resistance under FM Approvals 4470 and six sample fasteners of each type, length and finish. Thickness changes across a tapered roof, so the draft groups fasteners by the layout's thickness bands and totals each group on its own line.

Accessories, and the list a person must confirm. Missouri's accessory list runs to preformed cones and vents, corners, T-joint covers, lap sealant, termination bars about 1 by 1/8 inch and walkway pads about 3/16 inch, and its insulation has to be manufactured or approved by the membrane's maker. Western Washington wants cut-edge sealant wherever scrim is exposed and non-skid pads in service areas. Texas State wants a letter from the manufacturer listing every material in the assembly as acceptable under its 20-year no-dollar-limit guarantee. So the draft ends with a confirm list: board, fastener and adhesive pairings, the approved assembly for the job, and anything the warranty needs that the spec didn't name. Your reviewer will look first for the wrong thickness, a missing layer, short flashing and fasteners that don't suit the deck.

Once your reviewer says yes, the same drafting runs on new specs and takeoffs for about 30 days.

A person checks every quote before a contractor sees it, and every price stays with your desk. Each draft waits for that approval before it goes anywhere.

You see the live job's fixed price before signing anything. Whatever comes next is priced separately, and monthly support starts once a job is running.