Roofers can cold call homeowners, but every number on the National Do Not Call Registry has to come off the list first, including a list you bought. A call that uses an AI or recorded voice needs each homeowner’s written consent before it rings, so an AI dialer can’t legally work a cold list. The lowest-risk calls go to your past customers and anyone who asked you for a quote, because the rules let you call them for a set time even if they’re on the registry.
A call center you hire works under the same rules, and its illegal calls count against your company. Everything below is US federal law unless it names a state.
Scrub every list against the registry at least every 31 days
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires you to download the registry and scrub your call list against it at least every 31 days. That covers a list you bought and a list of addresses a hailstorm hit. Most numbers on a skip-traced list are cell phones, and the rules cover cell phones the same as landlines.
Registry data for up to five area codes is free, and each area code beyond five cost $82 a year from October 1, 2025.
Most sales calls to a business are exempt from these rules, which helps a commercial roofer calling property managers (Commercial Roofing Leads: Where Property Managers and GCs Find Roofers). The exemption does nothing for a residential roofer, because a homeowner’s cell phone is a consumer line.
Scrub every list before anyone dials it, and file the date of the registry download with the list.
Past customers and recent quote requests are the list you can call
A past customer can be called for up to 18 months after their last purchase, delivery or payment, even if they’re on the registry. Someone who asked for a quote or filled in your website form can be called for 3 months after they asked. Either window closes the moment the person asks you to stop calling.
A homeowner who isn’t on the registry can also tell you to stop. Federal rules require you to honor that within 10 business days and keep the request for 5 years, which means keeping your own do-not-call list. You also need a written do-not-call policy you can show on demand, and whoever makes the calls has to be trained to use the list.
Add a do-not-call column to whatever holds your customer and quote names before the first call, then start with the customers whose roofs you’ve already done. Email and Text Marketing to Past Roofing Customers covers reaching the same people by email and text.
An AI or recorded voice needs written consent before the first call
A sales call that uses an artificial or prerecorded voice needs the homeowner’s prior written consent, on cell phones and landlines alike. On February 8, 2024 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled unanimously that AI-generated voices count as artificial under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, effective immediately. An AI dialer therefore falls under the same consent rule as a robocall, and nobody on a bought list has given that consent.
Homeowners can take these calls to court themselves. A homeowner can collect $500 per illegal autodialed or prerecorded call, or their actual loss if that is greater, and a court can triple it for a willful or knowing violation. Because the damages run per call, these cases get filed as class actions.
Consent can work for homeowners who come to you first. If you add an AI-call consent box to your estimate form, the form has to say clearly what the calls are for, and you can’t make ticking the box a condition of buying. A recorded call made with consent still has to offer an automated opt-out, by voice or key press, that ends the call right away. A homeowner can also take consent back by any reasonable method, and you have 10 business days to honor it.
Keep any AI caller to people who ticked a box that names the calls, and have a person make the cold calls.
A predictive dialer may drop no more than 3% of answered calls
A predictive dialer may abandon no more than 3% of answered sales calls over a 30-day period. A call counts as abandoned when no live rep comes on within 2 seconds.
Federal law defines an autodialer narrowly, as equipment that can store or produce numbers “using a random or sequential number generator” and then dial them. A plain power dialer working through your own list may fall outside that definition. Any recorded or AI voice on the call still needs consent.
Before you rent a dialer, ask the vendor in writing whether it is predictive and how its settings stay under the 3% cap.
A homeowner can sue your company over a call center’s illegal calls
A homeowner who gets more than one call within 12 months that breaks the Do Not Call rules, made by or on behalf of the same company, can sue for up to $500 per call. A court can triple that if the violation was willful, and calls placed by a call center you hired count as calls made on your behalf.
The FTC can also fine up to $53,088 per violating call, its 2025 inflation-adjusted figure.
The FTC excuses an honest mistake when a company has written do-not-call procedures and trains, monitors and enforces them. The company also has to keep an internal do-not-call list and have pulled the registry no more than 31 days before the call. That defense covers errors only, so a practice of calling registered numbers falls outside it. The homeowner lawsuit rule gives a defense to a company that set up and followed reasonable do-not-call procedures with due care.
Before you sign with a call center, get four things from it in writing: its do-not-call policy, the date of its last registry download, proof it will load your internal do-not-call list, and a script that gives your company’s name. No public source reports how often a roofer’s cold calls book inspections. Ask the call center which inspections and signed jobs it booked for another roofer, then call that roofer to check.
Every sales call must name your company and fall between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.
The caller has to give their own name, the name of the company the call is for, and a phone number or address where that company can be reached. A call center script that gives only the call center’s name breaks the rule. The hours are the homeowner’s local time, and state law can set stricter ones.
These two openers meet the rule. Fill in the brackets and keep the last two lines of each.
A past customer
Hi [first name], this is [your name] with [company name]. We put the roof on your house on [street] in [month and year], and I’m calling to check how it’s held up since [the last storm]. If you’d like someone to take a look, I can set that up this week. If you’d rather we didn’t call again, say so and I’ll take your number off our list. Our office number is [phone number].
A quote request that went quiet
Hi [first name], this is [your name] with [company name]. You asked us about [your roof] on [date], and I’m following up on that quote. Is it still something you want done? If not, I’ll close it out and we won’t call about it again. You can reach our office at [phone number].
If the number is on the registry, use each opener only inside its window from the past-customer section above.
Since September 2025, Texas counts sales texts as telephone solicitation
Texas SB 140 took effect September 1, 2025 and brought marketing text messages under the state’s telephone solicitation law. Unless an exemption applies, a business sending sales texts in Texas now has to register with the state, and homeowners can sue over violations of the state’s telemarketing chapter.
Before you text or call a cold list in any state, look up that state’s telemarketing law, because it can be stricter than the federal rules.
Make these six checks before anyone dials a homeowner
- Scrub the list against a current registry download and keep the download date.
- Keep your own do-not-call list and a written policy, and train whoever makes the calls.
- Call past customers and quote requests first, inside their windows.
- Use an AI or recorded voice only with written consent that says what the calls are for.
- Have every caller give their name, your company’s name and a number, inside calling hours.
- Before you sign with a call center, get its policy, its registry date, its promise to load your do-not-call list and the jobs it booked for another roofer, all in writing.
A homeowner who finds you on Google Maps and asks for a quote joins the list you’re allowed to call back. To see how far from your office those homeowners can find you, run the free Google Maps heatmap: pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.