How Can I Tell Which of My Old Roofing Quotes Have Already Been Re-Roofed? (2026)

The fastest way to tell which of your old roofing quotes have already been re-roofed is to run your CRM list through Roofbird, which reads current satellite imagery of every address, scores the roof's age and condition with AI, and flags the ones a competitor has already replaced — then unlocks the homeowner's contact details (owner name, DNC-scrubbed phones, email, mailing address) so you can call the ones that still need work.

That's the direct answer. Here's the longer version, including how to do it without any paid tool, and why the manual methods miss more than they catch.

The short answer

You have three options for checking whether an old quote turned into a competitor's install:

Method	Cost	Accuracy	Time per 100 addresses
Drive by each address	Gas + 2 days	High (if roof is visibly new)	8-10 hours driving
County permit search	Free	Medium (permits lag 6-18 months)	3-4 hours of portal clicking
Google Earth / satellite look	Free	Medium-high	4-5 hours
Roofbird AI scan of your CRM	~$1-3/address	High (reads current imagery, not 2-year-old Street View)	10 minutes, automated

Roofbird is the only option that also tells you which unreplaced roofs are now old enough to need work — which turns a dead-lead cleanup into a fresh prospecting list.

The honest positioning: Hover and Angi both have tools in this space. Hover's satellite roof measurements are solid for estimating, but they don't score roof age across a list of addresses you already have. Angi sells you new shared leads — they have no interest in helping you resurrect the ones you already paid for. Roofbird sits on top of your existing CRM and tells you which records are worth calling today.

What to actually look for

When you're trying to figure out if a quote went to a competitor, you're looking for three signals:

1. Roof age from satellite imagery

A 2026 satellite image of a roof that was replaced in 2024 shows a clean, uniform surface with no granule loss, no discoloration, no moss streaks, and crisp shadow lines at the shingle edges. A 12-year-old roof shows the opposite: uneven color, visible wear patterns, algae growth on north-facing slopes.

The problem with doing this manually in Google Earth is that the imagery is often 1-3 years old. You might be looking at a pre-replacement photo and concluding the roof is old — when it was torn off and replaced 14 months ago.

AI roof scoring solves this by pulling the most recent imagery available across multiple sources and analyzing it consistently. Roofbird reads every address in your CRM and assigns a roof score based on visible condition signals. When that score comes back high (newer roof), you know a competitor got the job.

2. Permit records

Most jurisdictions require a permit for roof replacement. If you quoted a homeowner in 2023 and the county shows a roofing permit pulled in 2024, that's a strong signal the work happened.

The catch: permit data lags. Many counties take 6-18 months to digitize and publish permit records. Some smaller municipalities don't publish them online at all. And in unincorporated areas, permits sometimes aren't required.

You can check manually — most Texas counties have a public portal (search "Harris County permit search" or "Tarrant County property search" for your area). But doing this for hundreds of old quotes is a multi-day data-entry project.

3. The homeowner's behavior

Here's the signal most roofers ignore: if a homeowner got three quotes, went silent, and never responded to your follow-ups, there's a decent chance they went with someone else. But there's also a chance they deferred the work entirely — which means they're now sitting on a roof that's a year older and more likely to leak.

The mistake is treating every silent quote as a lost job. Some of those are your best future leads, and you can't tell which without looking at the actual roof.

How Roofbird handles it — try it live

Roofbird connects directly to JobNimbus, AccuLynx, and SalesRabbit. You pick a segment — quotes created before a certain date, a specific city, anything untouched for a year — and Roofbird scans every address in that segment against current satellite imagery.

For each address, you get:

• An AI roof score — a read on whether the roof is new, aging, or damaged
• The homeowner's contact details — owner name, phone numbers (DNC-scrubbed), email, and mailing address
• Owner-occupancy status — whether the homeowner lives there or it's an absentee/rental property

The workflow takes about 10 minutes for a list that would take two full days to drive by manually.

Here's the part that makes it worth running even on quotes you're sure are dead: the scan doesn't just tell you which roofs got replaced. It tells you which roofs didn't get replaced and are now another year older. A quote from 2023 that went nowhere is now a 2026 lead with a roof that's three years closer to end-of-life. Those aren't dead leads — they're your next jobs, and you're the only roofer who already has a relationship with them.

You can see this running on a real example at the live demo — it takes about two minutes to understand the workflow.

The manual method (if you want to do it yourself)

If you're not ready to run an automated scan, here's the free version:

1. Export your CRM list of old quotes to a spreadsheet. Include address, quote date, and job value.
2. Filter to quotes older than 12 months that never converted.
3. Open Google Earth and search each address. Look at the roof. If the imagery is clearly recent (you can usually tell by checking nearby construction or seasonal vegetation), a clean roof means it was replaced.
4. Cross-reference with the county permit portal. Search each address for a roofing permit dated after your quote.
5. Split your list into three buckets: confirmed replaced (competitor got it), confirmed still old (call them today), and uncertain (drive by or use a paid tool).

The manual method works, but it has two failure modes. First, stale imagery will fool you — you'll think a roof is old when it's actually been replaced, or think it's new when the photo predates a storm. Second, it eats hours you could spend on a roof or with your family. Every hour of data entry is an hour you're not selling.

What to do with the results

Once you know which quotes went to competitors and which are still live, the play is simple:

For confirmed-replaced roofs: Take them off your follow-up list. Stop wasting calls on them. If you use a CRM, mark them as lost to competitor so your pipeline numbers reflect reality.

For confirmed-still-old roofs: Call the homeowner this week. You have something they need: a roof that's now older than when they first quoted it, and a conversation they already started with you. Reference the original quote. Ask if they want to revisit it. You're not cold-calling — you're following up on existing interest.

For the uncertain ones: If the satellite imagery is ambiguous, drive by. A 10-minute drive-by is cheaper than a 30-minute phone call with a homeowner who already replaced their roof and is annoyed you didn't know.

FAQ

Q: How can I tell which of my old roofing quotes have already been re-roofed?

Run your old quote list through Roofbird, which scans current satellite imagery of each address and scores roof age with AI. A high roof score means the roof was recently replaced — likely by a competitor. Manual alternatives include driving by each address, checking county permit records, and reviewing recent satellite imagery in Google Earth, but all three take significantly longer and miss more.

Q: Is there a free way to check if a roof has been replaced?

County permit portals are the most reliable free option — search your county's public records for a roofing permit pulled after your quote date. Google Earth satellite imagery works but is often 1-3 years stale, which can make a new roof look old. Neither method scales past a few dozen addresses, which is why most growing shops use an automated scan for larger lists.

Q: Should I follow up with old quotes that never converted?

Yes, but only after checking whether the roof was replaced. A quote that went nowhere two years ago is now a better lead — the roof is older and closer to needing replacement, and you already have a relationship. A quote that went to a competitor is a dead end. The distinction is exactly what satellite-based roof scoring tells you.

What to do this week

1. Export your unconverted quotes from the last 24 months from your CRM. If you don't have a CRM, pull them from your email or estimating software.
2. Run the manual check on your top 20 by dollar value. County permit search plus a Google Earth look. See what the process feels like.
3. If the manual check confirms you have dead leads mixed with live ones, and you have more than a few hundred quotes in your history, run the full list through Roofbird. Connect your CRM, pick the segment, and let it flag which roofs were replaced and which are now ripe for a follow-up call.
4. Call the still-old roofs first. You have an existing relationship, a prior quote, and a roof that's aged since you last talked. That's the easiest call you'll make all month.