How the numbers are built

The problem with most cost guides

Search any home project and you get a range: "$8,000 to $22,000". Ask where it came from and the trail ends at an unnamed panel of homeowners, a lead-generation form, or another article that copied it. The range is wide enough to be unfalsifiable and old enough to be wrong.

What we do instead

A contractor's price is mostly two things: the hours of skilled labour a job takes, and the materials it consumes. Both are measured by the US federal government, published openly, and updated on a schedule. We start there.

Labour. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme surveys employers and publishes hourly and annual wages by occupation for the nation, each state, and roughly 390 metro areas. A roofer's median wage in Tampa is not the same number as in Chicago, and that gap is the single biggest reason the same job has two prices.
Materials. The BLS Producer Price Index tracks what producers charge for lumber, asphalt roofing, concrete products, copper, paint, gypsum and the rest, monthly. We quote the index level and its change over twelve months rather than inventing a dollar figure per square foot.
The gap between wage and price. A crew's wage is not what you are billed. Payroll taxes, insurance, vehicles, overhead and profit sit on top, and we show that multiplier explicitly instead of hiding it inside a range.

What the arithmetic looks like

Every cost estimate on this site is shown as work, not as a verdict: the metro wage, the crew size, the hours, the burden multiplier, the material component. If you disagree with our hours assumption you can substitute your own and rerun it in your head. That is deliberate. A number you cannot audit is worth nothing.

What this site does not claim

We are not contractors and we have not done your job. We do not quote work, we do not visit sites, and we never write as though we have. What we publish is a defensible arithmetic floor and a set of the variables that move it. A real bid from a licensed local contractor is the only number that binds anyone, and no calculation here replaces one.

Local permit fees, disposal charges, code upgrades, access difficulty and season can all move a real invoice well outside our range. We name those factors on each page rather than pretending they average out.

Sources

Figures are traced, in this order of preference:

Bureau of Labor Statistics — wage and price index series, cited by series
Other federal agencies — Census Bureau, Department of Energy, IRS, EPA
State and municipal permit fee schedules, cited by jurisdiction
Manufacturer published specifications and warranty terms

Lead-generation sites, contractor directories and other cost blogs are not sources and are never cited. If a figure cannot be traced to the list above, it does not go on the page.

The date stamp

Wage data is released annually and the price indexes monthly, so a cost article has a shelf life whether or not its author admits it. Every page here carries a Verified date showing when its figures were last checked against the series listed. When a release moves a number, the page is updated and the date moves forward.

How this site makes money

Through advertising, and where relevant, affiliate links. Neither buys a place in an article, a number, or a recommendation. See the advertiser disclosure.

Corrections

If a figure here is wrong, stale, or misread from the source, tell us and it gets fixed. Details on the contact page.