Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Quote check

Check an air-source heat pump quote

Paste the quote you were given and enter your measurements. Every line is read against the job: what the quote leaves out, what it adds, which quantities sit outside the computed range, and what to ask. Quantities only — never prices.
  • 2Lines the job needs
  • 4Measurements
  • QuestionsNever a verdict

How the quote is read

Each line of an air-source heat pump quote is matched to the line of the job it names, or marked as something the Air-source heat pump replacing a boiler takeoff does not measure — labour, removal, hire, fees, or anything else. Work the takeoff lists as part of the job but gives no quantity for is read as that work, not as something the quote adds.

The job’s own figures come from 4 measurements — floor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change, from the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way, pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted, loose waste, as a depth over those rooms — run through the same calculators as the takeoff, so the two give the same figure for the same job.

Reading an air-source heat pump quote

Two heat pump quotes are comparable only at the same flow temperature. Worth asking what water temperature each design heats the house at on the coldest day it plans for, the seasonal performance the installer expects at that temperature, and which rooms needed larger radiators to get there: a design that keeps every old radiator either runs the unit hotter, and dearer to run, or has found the house loses less heat than it seemed. Worth seeing, too, the room-by-room heat-loss figures the unit's size came from, rather than the old boiler's rating carried across.

Then read what surrounds the unit. Worth seeing each named: what it stands or hangs on and the feet under it, the cylinder by size with its coil and whether it is unvented, the radiators replaced with their valves, any pipe upsized, the power flush before the heat pump goes on, the inhibitor or the antifreeze that guards the outdoor pipes against a frost in a power cut, the controls with the weather curve set at handover, the drain for the defrost water, and the new circuit with a switch beside the unit and a new board if the old one has no spare way. Taking out the old boiler, a cylinder and the loft tanks, and capping a chimney flue the boiler used, are each worth confirming as inside the price or left out.

A UK grant towards the unit is paid only through an installer certified under MCS: worth confirming that certification, who applies for the grant and when its certificate arrives, who tells the network operator, and whether the unvented cylinder's notification and the electrician's certificate come with the handover. In North America the permit, its mechanical and electrical inspections and the refrigerant technician's certification answer the same questions. Worth settling as well how many days the house will be without heating and hot water, and in which month.

Three steps

  1. Give your measurements. The page opens on a typical job so it has something to show.
  2. Paste the quote's lines as they came, or add them one at a time. Leave the prices in — they are taken out, never read.
  3. Read the report: what is left out, what is added, what sits outside the range, and one list of questions to send.

Your quote

The air-source heat pump quote you were given

Paste from an email, or open or drop a PDF, Excel, CSV or text file, or a photo of the quote. Amounts of money are taken out before anything is read — this page compares quantities, never prices.

Nothing you paste or open leaves this device.

or one the job needs:

The reading

What the quote says, against the job

Air-source heat pump · Floor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 650 sq ft · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 10 ft · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 26 ft · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.5 inFloor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 60 m² · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 3 m · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 8 m · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.01 m

  • What it leaves out

    Every line the job needs that nothing on the quote reads as, with the quantity your measurements produce.

  • What it adds

    Lines this job's takeoff does not measure — labour, removal, hire, fees, anything else — each named for what it is.

  • What sits outside the range

    Quantities above or below the computed range, by how much, in the quote's unit or converted and shown.

  • What to ask

    One list of questions, in the quote's order, ready to copy and send. Questions, never a verdict.

Paste the quote above, or add its lines one at a time. The reading appears here as each line is read.

Outside what this takeoff measures

10

Nothing in the reading measures these. Whether the quote covers each is worth asking in its own right: a scope missing from a quote tends to become a cost after work has started. Why each is left out is on the takeoff.

  • The heat-loss survey and the design drawn from it
  • The grant itself, and the MCS scheme a UK grant rests on, which the installer or the household applies to
  • Planning permission, and the noise condition England's permitted-development rules set, or a local noise rule or permit elsewhere
  • Increasing the house's supply or main fuse (service), where the supply check finds it too small
  • Fabric work a design may ask for first, such as loft or wall insulation, draught-proofing or new windows, each a job of its own
  • Taking out an oil tank or bottled LPG, a gas fire or a back boiler, or a whole stack; capping the open flue the old boiler used is listed
  • A new cupboard or enclosure round the hot-water store, and strengthening the floor under it, whose weight is flagged
  • The tariff the unit runs on, a new meter, and any export or time-of-use deal with the energy supplier
  • Temporary or portable heaters for the household meanwhile, and its baths and showers taken elsewhere until the new store is hot
  • Cooling, by an air-to-air or ducted system, is another job; the mini-split takeoff covers one room's

The reference

Every line the reading looks for

For Floor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 650 sq ft · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 10 ft · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 26 ft · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.5 inFloor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 60 m² · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 3 m · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 8 m · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.01 m. Each is the calculator linked under it, run with those measurements; a range is that calculator at both ends of one choice, not a margin for error.

How the ranges are taken

Where the choice is cutting waste, the ends are the site’s own allowances: 5%, the tight buffer of a crew with a planned set-out, and 15%, the wider one a first-timer orders. Where the calculator decides between patterns or materials, the ends are the options it offers. Where it adds nothing for loss, the range runs from the net quantity to 15% over it.

A minimum — the fewest hangers a spacing allows, the least airflow a room needs — has no upper end. A single figure carries an allowance the material itself needs, such as a lap, and names it.

What a reading like this cannot see

  • It does not know your prices, your market, or what the work ought to cost.
  • It does not know the building — the access, the condition of what is there, or what has to happen first.
  • It cannot check a lump sum, because there is no quantity in one.
  • A line it reads as missing may be priced under another name. A quantity outside the range is not evidence of anything. Each is a reason to ask a question.
  • Two quotes are not comparable until their scopes are.
  • It is not advice, and it is no substitute for a second quote.

The full takeoff

Every quantity for this job, with its working

The Air-source heat pump replacing a boiler takeoff runs the same calculators on the same measurements and shows what sits under each line here.

Open the takeoffEvery quote check

  • Base, allowance, order

    Each line's quantity before and after its allowance, and what to buy.

  • Every allowance editable

    Change a waste figure and the order follows, with its source named.

  • Into a project

    Add the whole job to a workspace with your own prices.

Frequently asked questions

What quantities does an air-source heat pump job need?
It depends on the measurements, so this page asks for yours. At the size it opens on — Floor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 60 m² · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 3 m · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 8 m · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.01 m — the lines come to: Lagging outside and in cold spaces, 15–17 x 1 m sections; Skip (dumpster) or a waste collection, 0.72 m³. In imperial units — Floor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 650 sq ft · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 10 ft · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 26 ft · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.5 in — they come to: Lagging outside and in cold spaces, 9 x 6 ft sections; Skip (dumpster) or a waste collection, 1 yd³.
Which line on an air-source heat pump quote varies the most?
The Lagging outside and in cold spaces: 15–17 x 1 m sections for a job measured Floor of the rooms where radiators or pipes change 60 m² · From the outdoor unit to the house wall, one way 3 m · Pipe through cold spaces indoors, each pipe counted 8 m · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.01 m, depending on the bend and trim waste allowed, from 5% to 15%.
What does an air-source heat pump quote often leave out?
The reading names every line of the job that nothing on the quote reads as — any of the 2 lines the takeoff measures. The takeoff also lists 10 things it does not measure, shown under the reading, and each is worth asking about: a scope missing from a quote tends to become a cost after work has started.
Can I paste the quote exactly as it came?
Yes — from an email, a PDF or a spreadsheet, one item to a line. Amounts of money are taken out before anything is read, headings and totals are skipped, and each line is shown with what it was read as, so a misreading is one correction. Quantities in the other unit system are converted and the conversion is shown; a count of boxes is never compared with a count of tiles.
Does this check the price as well?
No. It reads quantities, never prices, and this site publishes none: an installed price moves with the market, the season, the access and the specification, so a figure for what the work ought to cost would give you confidence in a number nobody can defend. A quantity against your own measurements is checkable, and every figure here links to the calculator that produced it.