Who doesn’t like a good online calculator?
Need to calculate your body mass index? There’s an online calculator. How about figuring out your mortgage payment? There’s an online calculator for that as well. Determining future child support payments, figuring out how much alcohol you need for a party, ascertaining the cost of college and even predicting when you will die. There’s an online calculator for them all.
But what about defining remodel cost? Of course!
I spent hours researching different online calculators and concluded:
- Some of them were developed by some pretty clever people.
- Many of them were developed by someone that lives in a vacuum.
- Trying to find a calculators via Google rarely gives you true calculators. Usually it gives you referral sites for hiring contractors. (And by the way, how many contractor referral sites does the world really need? There are hundreds of them! Here’s an idea: How about we all just find contractors the good old fashioned way? By asking people we know and trust who they have used? By talking with local suppliers who know the local market? It’s really not that hard, trust me…) (Congratulations on reading the world’s longest bullet point…)
Let’s take a deeper look at using these online remodel cost calculators:
When to Use this Method
Defining remodel cost using an online calculator is a good first step for your job. You need minimal information on your project (square footage and generic level of finishes) and can make decisions as you navigate through the questions.
They can also be helpful if you are checking validity of contractor bids to be sure you’re not getting gouged.
When NOT to Use this Method
This method is not ideal when trying to formally price your project. A truly accurate online calculator requires so many technical questions that it would be useless for the average homeowner. In addition, most calculators produce one of two estimates:
- A large price range to covey the fact that many variables were not addressed.
- A single price, in which case you need to be highly cautious, because you have no idea if it is a conservative or a liberal calculation of costs.
How to Use this Method
Here are the results of my research. I am sure I missed some calculators out there, so if you have a favorite, shoot me an email or leave it in the comments below and I will add it to the list!
ServiceMagic.com
ServiceMagic.com offers a homepage for calculators covering an array of remodel projects:
- Bathrooms
- Additions
- Kitchens
- Painting
- Porch and Deck
- Roofing
- Interior
- Exterior
The calculators are produced by a third-party developer, CostEstimator.com. Multiple sites, such as RemodelingMySpace.com and SimplyAdditions.com use the same program in their calculator links. These calculators are fairly detailed and produce a single estimated price, not a range.
DIYOnline.com
DIYOnline.com offers calculators for the following projects:
- Bathrooms
- Kitchens
- Ceilings
- Decks
These calculators are more simple than those offered by ServiceMagic and produce an estimate with a very large price range (up to 35% in some cases). In comparing the two calculators for a bathroom remodel, DIYOnline tends to produce a slightly lower average cost than ServiceMagic when using similar cost parameters and levels of finishes.
CraftsmenNetwork.com
Despite sounding like a place for single contractors to hang out and meet other single contractors (or perhaps contractors who are not single but are really scummy and just take of their wedding rings to go to this network), CraftsmenNetwork offers some nice cost calculators covering:
- Basements
- Bathrooms
- Deck Building
- Drywall
- Flooring
- Insulation
- Kitchen
- Painting
- Roofing
These calculators are a good balance between detailed and general in terms of their question depth. My one complaint is they don’t offer the chance to input square footage of your project. I feel this is critical information to specify in a calculator. These calculators also produce a fairly large price range.
CNNMoney.com
This has to be my favorite calculator, and perfect for people who like just one option. I debated on whether or not to include this but I thought you might find it entertaining.
You simply choose from a list of 24 different remodel options. For example, there are four bathroom options:
- Bathroom Addition
- Bathroom Remodel
- Upscale Bathroom Addition
- Upscale Bathroom Remodel
You simply click which you prefer and out pops a price. From 2005. Perhaps this calculator would be best if you only wanted to spend 20 seconds on defining remodel cost.
One nice thing about this calculator is it shows the effect on your home value in terms of recoverable costs, whereas the others do not offer this option.
In our next and final post in this series, we will look at my favorite method for determining remodel costs: hiring yours truly!
Go back to Defining Remodel Cost home page.
Image Credit: www.flickr.com/photos/jeremylevinedesign/
