How to measure a roof on your phone, step by step: satellite view, five tools, export the PDF

You can measure a roof on your phone in the browser: open a new measurement, frame the house in the satellite view, trace each roof plane with Draw Roof, label the edges, set a pitch per face and download the PDF, all from the truck. The phone layout trims the builder to the tools a thumb can work; the tracing is the same job as on a desktop with fewer buttons on screen.

What the phone layout gives you#

Below 640 pixels of width the builder drops its side rail. In its place:

• Two labelled cards along the top of the canvas, Select & Move and Draw Roof.
• A floating column on the left: Undo, Redo and Delete. On a drone or phone photo a fourth card, Set Scale, joins it. On a satellite capture the scale comes from the capture, so that card never appears.
• A blue panel button at the top right that opens the Measurement Panel as a sheet with three tabs, Draw, Edges and Pitch.
• A live totals chip at the bottom of the drawing and an orange Export button in the top bar.

Penetrations, cutouts and the pan tool are desktop and tablet only. A phone's one job is the outline; the drawing autosaves to your account, so the refinements can wait for a wider screen.

Step by step, from the address to the PDF#

1. Frame the roof#

Start a new measurement, type the address, and the second setup step opens Position Roof in Frame. Drag the map until the roof sits in the middle, pinch until the house fills most of the frame, then tap Confirm Location and Start Measuring. What you frame is what you measure. The tracing rules themselves, including what to do when the image is old or tree-covered, are in how to measure a roof from satellite imagery; the phone changes the controls, not the rules.

2. Trace each plane with Draw Roof#

Tap Draw Roof, then tap once on each corner of the first plane. While a shape is open, Undo point and Cancel sit on an orange band at the bottom, and from the third corner a green Close Shape button joins them. Tap the first point again, or Close Shape, to finish. Pinch to zoom and drag with two fingers to pan; the open shape survives both. One plane per facet: a gable is two shapes, a hip roof is four, and a dormer is drawn on the slope it sits on so the area under it is taken out.

3. Fix corners with Select & Move#

Switch to Select & Move and drag any corner that landed on the shadow instead of the drip edge. A magnifier opens above your finger while you drag, so the corner is never hidden under your thumb. Tap a corner and the Delete card arms. The grid toggle at the bottom is the one "draw clean" aid touch has: on for a boxy roof, off for a bay or a turret.

4. Label the edges#

With Select & Move active, tap a line. The What is this edge? card opens with ridge, hip, valley, eave and rake first and the flashing types behind More types. Tap one, then the next line; the card stays open. The panel's Edges tab reads Edges labeled X of Y, and its Auto-Label Edges button types the lines its two geometry checks agree on. Lines it is unsure of stay yellow for you, anything you typed by hand is never changed, and one Undo reverses the pass.

5. Set a pitch per face#

Open the Pitch tab. Each face has a Set pitch control, and until every face has one the chip shows the footprint with Roof area: needs a pitch instead of a roof area that looks final. Read the pitch from the gable-end photo you took when you pulled up, or from the free pitch finder, which lays twelve pitch lines over a Street View photo for you to match by eye. This step turns the footprint into roof area.

6. Export the PDF#

Tap Export, choose PDF Measurement Report, tap Download PDF. The free report carries RoofStruct branding and prints the roof diagram, the facet table, every edge total by type and the waste table. Free, unlimited self-serve measuring and PDF reports, no card.

A worked example: a colonial from the driveway#

A two-storey colonial with a one-storey garage off the right side: a long ridge on the house, a short one on the garage, gables at both ends of each, four planes. Trace the two house planes first, then the two garage planes. Where the garage roof meets the house wall, the line is a wall line, not an eave, so pick step flashing from More types. Set the house at the pitch the gable end shows, say 8/12, and the garage at 4/12 if the photo says so; the chip updates as each value lands. Export. Twenty-odd corners, a dozen labels and two pitches, which is why it fits between parking and knocking on the door.

When to switch to the desktop#

Two things justify it: anything that needs the tools the phone hides (a chimney or skylight cutout, a penetration count, a second roof layer for a porch tucked under the main eave), and a cut-up roof with a dozen or more planes, where a finger covers three corners at once. Either way, finish the outline on the phone, let it autosave, and open the same measurement on a laptop; nothing is redrawn. The other phone route, where a ground photo supplies the pitch and the overhang the satellite view cannot, is in how to measure a roof from a phone photo.

Where you trip#

• Framing too wide. A capture of the lot makes every corner a guess. Fill the frame with the house.
• Tracing the shadow line. On a sunny-day image the eave shadow sits a few feet outside the drip edge. Trace the roof edge and check the overhang against your ground photo.
• Closing with a stray tap. A tap near the first point while you meant to pan closes the shape early. Pan with two fingers; Undo point fixes it.
• Leaving a face without a pitch. The chip tells you, but it is easy to export anyway, and a pitch guessed low under-counts every steep roof.
• Labelling the shared ridge twice. Two planes share one ridge. Label the line once and the totals count it once.
• Trying to do the penetrations. They are not on the phone by design. Note the chimney and the vents and add them at the desk.

FAQ#

Does a satellite capture need a scale on the phone?#

No. The scale is worked out from the capture, which is why Set Scale appears only on your own drone or phone photos. There, draw one known length, a garage door or a taped fascia, before you trace.

Can I order a done-for-you report from the phone instead?#

Yes. If there is no time to trace on site, the order flow works in the same phone browser. A technician measures the roof and a second one checks it, usually delivered within 4 hours (turnaround can vary with volume and complexity).