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Home Improvement Calculators in Housing Market is Contractors Estimate Staff - Mortgage Lenders Plus.com

The most common home improvement calculator in our housing market is the contractor’s estimate for the job. If, however, you are undertaking a home improvement project on your own and wish to calculate the cost, there are some excellent home improvement calculators available online that will assist you in developing a cost estimate.

Perhaps the most detailed home improvement calculator to be found is located at This Old House: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/calculator. The details that this calculator takes into account provide a remarkably thorough – and accurate – estimate of materials costs. The labor costs, of course, are intangible – it’s your time, and yours to tag with an evaluation.

The home improvement calculator at the above address will take you through cost estimates for every type of construction material that you are likely to need. It does so one item at a time. For instance, when estimating an interior painting job, the calculator requires you to input wall dimensions – one figure for all walls, in length; another for all walls in height.

Window dimensions are entered, one figure for height (in inches) and another for width, with a third figure for the number of windows of like dimension. Doors and door trim are estimated with the same three dimensions as windows. Ceilings are measured by the length and width of the room(s). The calculator will deduct measurements for window and doors from the totals for the walls, and give you a figure for the amount of paint needed to complete your interior painting job.

Similar measurement formulas are provided for window paint, door paint, exterior paint, wallpaper, vinyl floor tile, wood flooring, carpeting, etc. Included in these measurements are such tips as when measuring wood flooring: “If your room has irregular dimensions, divide it into squares or rectangles and use this tool on each of those areas and add the totals.”

This home improvement calculator also handles estimates for items such as air conditioning and grass mulch. It provides air conditioning estimates on a room-by-room basis; required data includes room dimensions, information about insulation, sunlight exposure, and whether the room needs cooling after dark as well as during the day. Based on your figures, it will give you an estimate of the cooling unit needed in BTUs, plus or minus five hundred units. It will also give you an estimate of the cost savings associated with an energy efficient unit. This is yet another example of the fact that a home improvement calculator is a great start for bringing your project into focus.