Home Addition Estimates

For example, a family room addition, bedroom addition, sunroom addition or a garage addition are typically much less expensive than a home addition that includes a new kitchen or bathroom. Kitchen additions for example require new pluming, kitchen cabinetry, and kitchen appliances. Kitchen additions also require electrical work, including the installation of GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters). Bathroom additions are a similar story. Bathroom additions require extensive plumbing and electrical work, cabinetry and bathroom fixtures.

Cabinetry, plumbing fixtures and lighting fixtures are expensive items, and thus can dramatically impact the home addition estimates that you receive. Other key variable factors of the living space that will affect your home addition estimates are: The amount of additional square living space desired. (A larger home addition will translate into higher home addition costs. However, the cost per square foot of the home addition will more likely be lower due to economies of scale.)

• How many doors and windows are associated with the new home? (Doors and windows can dramatically impact home addition estimates.)
• How the new home addition will tie into the existing home and the structural work required. (For example, will the home addition be connected onto just the side of the existing home, or will it wrap around the back of the home as well? Also, will the size of the home addition require steel or engineering timbers? Finally, what type of foundation will be required? Will the new home addition be built on a slab, crawl space, concrete foundation wall, or steel posts?)
• The quality and type of material used in the home addition. (Siding, door and window choices, interior trim, flooring and lighting selections all will impact the contractor home addition estimates that you receive.)

By developing sketches and a list of specific requirements for you home addition you can answer many of these questions and more effectively communicate them to potential home addition contractors. Ultimately this will translate into more accurate home addition estimates. Once you have home addition plans in hand, you are ready to find a home addition contractor for your project. Finding a Contractor and Obtaining Home Addition Estimates Finding a qualified and professional home addition contractor(s) is not always easy to do. It is very important to find the right one for you specific home addition plans.

For example, hiring a deck contractor is hardly the right person for a kitchen addition project. It is also important to find a home addition contractor that can meet your timeline and budget requirements.

Evaluating Home Addition Estimates

When obtaining home addition estimates it is important to make sure that the contractors provide you with a complete home addition cost breakdown table of every phase of the project. The more detail in the home addition cost breakdown table, or bid sheet, the more likelihood of an accurate home addition estimate.

To help in obtaining accurate and consistent home addition estimates, see my Home Addition Bid Sheets. My Home Addition Bid Sheets provide a request for quote section that you can provide to prospective building contractors. They also include comprehensive home addition cost breakdown tables, in Microsoft Excel format, that allow contractors to specify his projected home addition cost estimates for every phase of the project.
When interviewing potential home addition contractors make sure you check their references. I typically like to check 3 to 4 references.

Specifically I prefer to check 1 or 2 references associated with recent work completed by the home addition contractor and then another 1 or 2 references associated with projects that were completed a few years ago. This way I can judge the contractor’s current work ethic as well as the quality of their work.