Copingstone

Every roofer who publishes a number on this shelf publishes a rate per square metre, and Copingstone exists to show what that rate leaves out.

On the shipped defaults, a 120 square metre footprint at a 35 degree pitch is 146.5 square metres of actual roof, because a roof's surface is not the ground underneath it. A bare rate per square metre reads $8,497. Tear off, scaffolding, waste removal and an eight per cent contingency bring the real figure to $13,598, sixty per cent higher, each line building left to right as its own column, not folded into one total.

A second page argues about borrowing, not building. Financed over five years at 9.9 per cent, the banner a roofer leads with says $288 a month. The total actually repaid is $17,295, $3,697 more than the cash price, 27.2 per cent on top, not a number left for a buyer to work out.

The home page carries no eyebrow, no display headline and no pair of buttons above the fold. It opens on a roof section instead, drawn at whatever pitch a visitor sets, footprint underneath and roof surface over it, so the relationship the estimate runs on is watched, not stated.

Twelve pages and two CMS collections: five roof types, each with a minimum pitch, a typical pitch, an install rate and a service life; five finished jobs, each carrying its own naive figure against its own real one, one noting that four thousand of the difference is tear off, waste and the scaffold. A survey page states what two hours on a ladder actually settles, and a guarantee page states what is covered, and what is not, including that the guarantee transfers once, free, if the house is sold.

Set in a variable display face that widens and thickens on the home headline, a plain grotesk body, and a monospaced figure face for every number on the site, so nothing invoice shaped has to line up by hand. Seven colour tokens, each with its own dark scheme value.

The company, its roofs, its finished jobs and its guarantee are fictional.