Job costs & budgets

Cost per square foot, linear foot and cubic yard; board-foot lumber pricing; labor cost; markup; material waste; renovation, kitchen, bathroom, deck, extension, loft and whole-house budgets; flooring comparisons; doing it yourself against hiring; equipment rental against buying; rebates; the return on an improvement; electricity running costs; and what a water leak wastes.

Whether you are pricing a unit of work, a whole project or the cost of owning the result. A unit rate multiplies out over a quantity; a project budget adds the allowances that unit rates leave out — waste, contingency, fees and tax — in the order they compound; a running cost is a rate times a use. None of these pages holds a market price, so every figure is built from rates you supply.

Market rates themselves, which vary too much by region and season to publish honestly, and the programme and payment side of a running job.