Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Quote check

Check a whole-house ventilation 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.
  • 3Lines the job needs
  • 9Measurements
  • QuestionsNever a verdict

How the quote is read

Each line of a whole-house ventilation quote is matched to the line of the job it names, or marked as something the Whole-house ventilation (MVHR or HRV) 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 9 measurements — floor of the rooms with a valve, duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added, from the unit to each outside terminal, room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void, room duct diameter, outside duct diameter, duct insulation thickness, joints sealed with mastic, 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 a whole-house ventilation quote

A ventilation quote names a unit, and the figures behind it are worth having in writing: the airflow the design gives each room, the fan speed the unit runs at to deliver it, and whether that design was worked out for this house or carried over from a standard layout. Worth asking which unit and which duct system are proposed, where the unit sits and how its filters are reached, and whether the heat recovery figure quoted is the maker's tested one.

The ducting is where two quotes for the same house part company. Worth seeing named: the kind of duct and its size to each room, how the runs cross the house without cutting into joists, how the ducts to the outside and any duct in the loft are insulated, where the terminals go and how a roof terminal is weathered, the condensate pipe and its trap, and the unit's electrical supply. Door undercuts, fire-stopping and making good the ceilings are each worth confirming as inside the figure or left for another trade.

The commissioning is the part that shows the system does what the design says. Worth asking who measures each valve's airflow, with what instrument and with the doors shut, whether the readings are written down against the design figures and passed to building control or the inspector where they ask for them, and what the handover includes: the record, the manual, the filter schedule and a first set of spare filters.

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 whole-house ventilation 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

Whole-house ventilation · Floor of the rooms with a valve 750 sq ft · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 130 ft · From the unit to each outside terminal 10 ft · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 39 ft · Room duct diameter 4 in · Outside duct diameter 6 in · Duct insulation thickness 1 in · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.25 inFloor of the rooms with a valve 70 m² · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 40 m · From the unit to each outside terminal 3 m · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 12 m · Room duct diameter 0.1 m · Outside duct diameter 0.15 m · Duct insulation thickness 0.03 m · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · 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

9

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 design and its figures
  • An airtightness test (a blower door test), which a designer may ask for before the unit is chosen or after it is in
  • Combustion air for an open-flued boiler, fire or stove
  • Fire dampers and fire-rated duct where a duct passes a fire-separating wall or floor
  • Fans room by room instead of this job's one unit, each with its own duct and grille
  • Heating or cooling the air in the ducts
  • Measuring the ducting by length with its bends, branches and distribution boxes, and counting the valves and the grilles or cowls where the ducts leave the house
  • Redecorating beyond making good
  • Servicing once the job is done, and filters after the first set; the unit's filter schedule is among the papers the owner is given

The reference

Every line the reading looks for

For Floor of the rooms with a valve 750 sq ft · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 130 ft · From the unit to each outside terminal 10 ft · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 39 ft · Room duct diameter 4 in · Outside duct diameter 6 in · Duct insulation thickness 1 in · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.25 inFloor of the rooms with a valve 70 m² · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 40 m · From the unit to each outside terminal 3 m · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 12 m · Room duct diameter 0.1 m · Outside duct diameter 0.15 m · Duct insulation thickness 0.03 m · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · 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 Whole-house ventilation (MVHR or HRV) 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 a whole-house ventilation job need?
It depends on the measurements, so this page asks for yours. At the size it opens on — Floor of the rooms with a valve 70 m² · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 40 m · From the unit to each outside terminal 3 m · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 12 m · Room duct diameter 0.1 m · Outside duct diameter 0.15 m · Duct insulation thickness 0.03 m · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.01 m — the lines come to: Duct supports (hangers, straps or clips) along the runs, 20 hangers; Duct insulation (wrap), 9.9–10.8 m²; Skip (dumpster) or a waste collection, 0.42 m³. In imperial units — Floor of the rooms with a valve 750 sq ft · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 130 ft · From the unit to each outside terminal 10 ft · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 39 ft · Room duct diameter 4 in · Outside duct diameter 6 in · Duct insulation thickness 1 in · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.25 in — they come to: Duct supports (hangers, straps or clips) along the runs, 20 hangers; Duct insulation (wrap), 108–119 ft²; Skip (dumpster) or a waste collection, 0.58 yd³.
Which line on a whole-house ventilation quote varies the most?
The Duct insulation (wrap): 9.9–10.8 m² for a job measured Floor of the rooms with a valve 70 m² · Duct from the unit to the rooms, every run added 40 m · From the unit to each outside terminal 3 m · Room duct through a cold loft (attic) or void 12 m · Room duct diameter 0.1 m · Outside duct diameter 0.15 m · Duct insulation thickness 0.03 m · Joints sealed with mastic 0 · Loose waste, as a depth over those rooms 0.01 m, depending on the waste allowance allowed, from 5% to 15%.
What does a whole-house ventilation quote often leave out?
The reading names every line of the job that nothing on the quote reads as — any of the 3 lines the takeoff measures. The takeoff also lists 9 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.