Roof Size and Permit Fee Calculator for Ellijay, GA

How the calculator measures a roof

Roofers sell roofs by the square, which is 100 square feet of finished roof surface. The calculator starts with the footprint you enter, meaning the ground area the roof covers including porches and carports under the same roof. It adds the overhang you enter on every edge, then multiplies by the slope factor for your pitch. A 6-in-12 roof rises six inches for every twelve inches it runs, and its surface is a little over eleven percent larger than its plan area. A 12-in-12 roof is about forty-one percent larger. Those factors are plain geometry and are shown in the result.

The last input is waste. Cuts at hips, valleys, rakes and around dormers mean a roofer orders more material than the measured surface. Simple gable roofs need less allowance than cut-up roofs with several valleys. Ten percent is a common starting point for a simple roof; ask your roofer what they use and why.

What the calculator will not do is put a contractor price on the squares. Material and labor prices change with the product, the season and the crew, and we do not publish numbers we cannot source. The output is a measurement you can hold next to a written bid.

Gilmer County fee lines that sit beside the measurement

The table under the calculator lists the Section 66-40 lines from the Gilmer County Code of Ordinances that can attach to roofing work: a miscellaneous permit at $100.00, the alteration rate at $0.35 per square foot, re-inspections at $50.00 each, renewal of a permit that has lapsed less than a year at $100.00, and the building-without-a-permit charge of double the fee plus a $500.00 fine.

We do not multiply your roof area by the alteration rate, because the ordinance does not say the alteration rate is applied to roof surface, and Gilmer County Planning & Zoning decides which line a re-roof falls under. Call 706-635-3406 with your scope and the county will tell you. Inside Ellijay city limits, ask City of Ellijay Code Enforcement at 706-972-4141 instead.

The county's Planning & Zoning page says its printed fee schedule is being updated. The ordinance text is the current published version; confirm before you budget.

Reading your result against a roofer's bid

When a written bid arrives, find the square count. If it is close to your calculator result with a sensible waste allowance, the roofer measured the same roof you did. If it is well above or below, ask how they measured. Satellite reports can misread tree-covered roofs, which are common on wooded Gilmer County lots, and hand measurements can miss a porch roof or a dormer face.

Then check what is priced per square and what is priced separately. Ridge cap, starter strip, drip edge, flashing, valley material, pipe boots and ventilation are often separate lines. A bid that seems cheap per square may add those back; a bid that seems expensive may already include them.

Finally, look for a unit price for replacing damaged decking. Nobody knows how much decking is soft until the old roof is off, so a fair contract names the price per sheet in advance.

Pitch matters for more than area

Pitch changes the safety setup and the speed of the crew. Very low-slope sections fall below the minimum slope that shingle manufacturers and the residential code allow for asphalt shingles and need a different system; the low-slope roof page explains. Steep roofs above 8-in-12 need roof jacks, harnesses and more careful material staging, and many roofers charge a steep-roof premium for them.

Pitch also affects which materials make sense. Standing seam metal is a strong fit for steep cabin roofs that shed snow and leaves, while very low slopes need membranes or specialty metal systems rated for them. The metal roofing page has more.

If you do not know your pitch, look at the gable end from the ground and compare it with the options in the calculator, or ask the roofer to state it on the bid. A 4-in-12 and an 8-in-12 roof on the same footprint differ by more than ten percent in surface area.

Scenario check: same house, different roofs

Here is how geometry alone moves the numbers. A 1,600 square foot footprint with a 12-inch overhang and a 6-in-12 pitch works out to roughly 19.7 squares of roof surface before waste, about 21.7 with a ten percent waste allowance. Change only the pitch to 10-in-12 and the surface rises to roughly 23.0 squares before waste. Change it to 4-in-12 and it drops to about 18.6. Run your own numbers above; these are examples of the arithmetic, not prices.

Overhangs add up on wide-eaved mountain houses. Going from a 12-inch to a 24-inch overhang on that same footprint adds roughly two squares at a 6-in-12 pitch. Porches with their own roof planes add more.

That is why two bids can disagree by several squares without anyone being dishonest. Agreeing on the measurement first makes the rest of the comparison fair.

After the numbers: getting the job permitted and quoted

Once you have a square count and you know which permit office covers your address, gather photos of the roof from the ground and the attic, note any leaks, and write down the age of the roof if you know it. Those details let a roofer give you a firmer number on the first visit.

Use the Free Quote Request form to reach an independent roofer who works in Gilmer County. Ask them to put the square count, the permit, the decking unit price and the flashing plan in writing. Then compare that with a second bid built on the same scope.

If the roof is leaking now, start with the emergency tarp guide. Measurement and bids can wait a few days; water in the attic cannot.

Figures on this page come from: Gilmer County, GA Code of Ordinances, Sec. 66-40, Building permit fees (Municode); Gilmer County, GA: Planning & Zoning (building permits, inspections, STR ordinance notice); City of Ellijay: Code Enforcement (building permits and inspections inside city limits). Checked 2026-10-30.