Estimating with Certainty: Porch Replacement Costs

Thanks for joining in!

Looks like a few folks have already jumped on, so we're just gonna go ahead and get started here. My name is Michael. I'm with the customer success team over here at Clear Estimates. And today, we're gonna talk about getting more confident in our estimating and how we can do that through the power of accurate local cost data.

So it's no secret that it can be a challenge to write accurate estimates, especially if you're just getting started. Material costs fluctuate, Clients are indecisive. How many man hours should I bill for? What rates should I expect to be paying out?

So this is where clear estimates really comes in handy since we'll have accurate local cost data right at our fingertips updated for us automatically.

So this way we don't need to ballpark any estimates. The system is not only going to save us time writing the estimate, it's also going to give us locally sourced remodeling costs that we can use to price out our projects.

Now just a few months ago, clear estimates added in several brand new project templates for new porches and porch replacement estimates. So today we're gonna do a couple of things at once. We're gonna jump into Clear estimates. We're gonna show you what kinds of parts and templates are available for decks and porches. And we'll also get started on a very simple porch replacement cost estimate using one of the clear estimates templates.

But first just some quick background for you.

So a ton of work goes in behind the scenes every single quarter surveying regional suppliers to give you accurate material pricing that you can use to build your estimates. And the result is we have this amazing database of up to date remodeling costs updated for us automatically every quarter. So this includes plenty of pricing for decks and porches. So surface materials, roofing, concrete, post, steps, trim, you name it.

And the system also saves us time building the estimate. We're gonna have over three hundred top notch templates for common jobs. This is gonna include both deck and porch projects. And at the end of the day, we'll be able to just plug in a markup percentage and then automatically send out a professional proposal from our estimate and just saves tons of time putting these estimates together.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into clear estimates.

Pop out of here and jump into the software.

And really quick, I am just gonna go ahead and stop my camera. That way you can see everything that's going on here.

Now if it's your first time logging into the system, do be mindful that there is this quick tutorial over here, right here on the homepage.

You'll see this as soon as you log in. I do recommend taking a look at this. It's gonna show you how to set up an estimate and get started with the system. Plus, I'm gonna share some resources here at the end.

If you you do wanna schedule a one on one training call with us. This is included in your trial. If you're a paid subscriber, it's also included in your subscription at no cost at all. So we'd love to set up a call with you, walk you through clear estimates, make sure all your questions are answered.

So I'm gonna share that out at the end here.

But here on the home page, we can go ahead and start a new project. You'll see this option right here, new project. So if you do wanna set up a new project, go ahead and start there. In this case, I've already set up a blank estimate for us to work in today for porch replacement cost estimate.

I'm gonna go ahead and open that up by clicking it with my mouse, and this is gonna take us to the projects page. Now this is where you'll spend most of your time in clear estimates. The projects page is where we build the estimate. It's where we manage the estimate overall.

So if you're working on a job, nine times out of ten, you wanna be right here on the project page. And here on the projects page, we can add parts and templates into our project to price out all of the work that we need to estimate.

Now there's a few different ways we can add parts or line items into our project. Now keep in mind a part is just a line item, a scope of work that includes a description and a cost, and we have a library of around fifteen thousand line items that you can use to build out your projects.

Now there's a few different ways we can add parts into our project. Like I was saying, we can browse for them one by one with browse part library. We can search for them by name by using the search bar. If we just want to add in our own item very quickly, we can create custom part right here in the middle.

And then we also have, like I mentioned, about three hundred or so pre built templates for common jobs. These are just starting points for an estimate designed to get you eighty or ninety percent of the way there and then they can be fine tuned for the specifics of your estimate. So we'll get into these here in just a short while. But I'm gonna go ahead and start just by clicking browse part library.

I just wanna very quickly show you what the process looks like for adding a single part into your estimate. Now when we click browse part library, it's going to pull up this window here and you'll see that there is this right here in blue text, select a category. And now this is a drop down where you're going to see all of the categories that make up the clear estimates cost library, and you'll see that it's all sorted by category. So we're gonna start off with project preparation.

There's going to be a number of cost categories dedicated to demolition costs. Further down, we'll get into the building portions like concrete, masonry, and framing, roofing, windows, and so on. So the first step here is gonna be just to select a category. So let's say for example, I needed something like a permit fee.

I'm gonna go ahead and grab project preparation, And then when we select that category, we're gonna see all of the different parts that are built into this category. We'll see descriptions and cost data for each of these different parts. Now since there's so much built into each of these categories, you can use these subcategory drop downs to get more specific. So under project preparation, I have cost for plans and permits, building permit fees, surface protection, move contents, and so on.

So let's just go ahead and grab, building permit fees here. Now we're only looking at building permit fee items.

From here, I can just scroll through the list. We can make our selection. We'll just say this is a ten to twelve thousand dollar project cost. We can go ahead and click that here and then it's going to pull up this preview where we can plug in a quantity.

So everything is all set up for us. All of these parts include material or labor costs or both and all that's required of us as the estimator is to just plug in how much of everything we need. So how many building permit fees do I need? Probably just the one, so I'll just leave this at quantity one and we could go ahead and add this part into our estimate.

Now when we do that, we'll be able to take a look at this overview. We can see the part we've added to our estimate, the quantity, all of the cost data, and if we wanted to make any adjustments to this part, we can always open it up here with the pencil. And if we wanted to remove the part from our estimate, we could do that using the trash can.

And you'll see that the cost information for this part is going to be shown down here, where we can kind of see an overview of the costs in the project. So this is the actual total cost of the project followed by the dollar amount of markup here in blue. And then we have the base bid cost. This is the cost after markup. This is the cost that shown to our client, really the final price of the estimate here, and this is inclusive of our markup. It's never gonna show our client what our markup is. It's just gonna roll that into the project cost, and we can always set up our markup using these markup toggles for material labor and any subcontractor cost we plug into the estimate.

Now keep in mind that all of the material and labor costs, we provide our pre markup and pretax. So you do just wanna be mindful of that markup tool down there.

But let's go ahead and pop back into the part library, and I do wanna just talk about what kinds of costs are available for a porch replacement estimate. And this is gonna span a couple of different categories in the library here.

So let's go ahead and take a look at concrete demolition. Maybe we're demolishing the old concrete port structure. We might wanna find some costs here in concrete demolition. So if we click concrete demolition, we can use these subcategories to get more specific once again. And this is where we're gonna find costs for things like driveway and sidewalk demolition, slab demolition, footing demolition.

And then further down, we'll find even things like block wall, concrete wall demolition.

We also have things like masonry wall, column and step demolition. We can go ahead and click that and then just kind of look at what costs are specific to masonry wall column and step demo.

A lot of times we can use these part groups to get even more specific here. So we see we have a number of different demolition options here for different applications. So demolishing brick walls by hand or with air tools. Applications. So demolishing brick walls by hand or with air tools. Further down and this is gonna be a little more specific to porch replacement, we have demolition masonry platform and steps. And for any of these parts, once again, we can click them, plug in our quantity and then add the part into our estimate.

So moving right along here. So let's go ahead and take a look at some general demolition costs. There's going to be certain costs in this category you might need for things like siding demolition, roofing demolition, and then further down we're actually gonna find a specific section here for deck and porch demolition. Now this is gonna include costs for complete deck demo, demolishing deck components, demolishing porch and porch roof, demolishing porch deck structure, porch roof structure, porch components, and you can see that there's so much built in and all set to go for a porch replacement cost estimate. So if we're going through item by item, we can just kind of drill through these different categories, find what we need and plug it into our estimate.

Something like framing demolition might come up in a porch replacement cost estimate. There's plenty included here for joist demo, floor sheathing demo, wood wall, framing demolition, wall sheathing demolition, and so on. As well as things like truss demolition, roof sheathing demolition, and what have you.

If you need to do any excavation work in your estimate, that's all gonna be here in excavation. We're gonna see cost for general excavation by machine, by hand, continuous footing excavation, pure footing excavation, hauling and dumping and so on. And then let's start getting into actual costs we might need for building a new porch. So, if this was gonna be a concrete porch, all of those costs are gonna be here in seven concrete.

This is where we're going to find things like footings and slabs. Down here we're going to see monolithic footing and slabs, concrete steps and slab. We're also going to be able to take a look at masonry items. This is going to include costs like patios and walkways.

So if I come down to patios and walkways, this is great if we're looking for things like pavers, concrete pavers, brick pavers, slate and flagstone pavers, and so on. Once again, for any of these categories, we're just gonna find what we need, click the item, plug in a quantity, and add it into our project.

As far as roofing is concerned, keep in mind by the way that you can kind of just type in category titles and see what's available just by filtering up here at the top.

And if we wanted to take a look at roofing materials, there is going to be a category for roof framing as well as the roofing materials themselves here in twelve roofing and gutters. This is where we'll find specific types of shingles, fiberglass shingles, slate roofing, cedar shake, fiber cement, even things like metal roofing, single ply and built up. So plenty included for roofing and like I said, also plenty of framing costs for things like trusses and sheathing and ceiling joists and beams and what have you.

Now let's really get into the nitty gritty here. I'm gonna go into eighteen decks and porches, and this is where a lot of the costs you might need for a porch replacement cost estimate can be found. So let's go ahead and take a look at some of what's included here. So we do have cost for deck framing, surface, railing, steps, lattice, and then if we go down a little bit further, we're gonna find porches.

So a lot of the items you might need are gonna be here in eighteen decks and porches, under porches. And then again, we can use these part groups to get even more specific. So porch ceiling, porch flooring, screening, railing, posts, and so on. So we have so much included here all set to go for a porch replacement estimate.

Something like siding, you might need to do some siding work in your porch replacement. You're gonna be able to find all types of different siding here in nineteen siding and awnings. This is gonna include bevel wood siding, tongue and groove, board and batten, wood lap. A little further down, we're gonna get into things like plywood and hardboard, fiber cement siding, and so on.

If you do need to do any trim work, a lot of what you'll need in an estimate like this is gonna be in twenty exterior trim. And Keep in mind when we select these categories, we can also then just click up into the search bar and search for specific terms. So maybe I just wanted to price out some fascia. I can go ahead and search.

I'm only searching in trim and we can see all of these costs show up for exterior fascia. Something like soffit, same thing. And once again, we'd have all these costs right here at our fingertips. We can go ahead and click these parts, plug in a quantity and add it into our estimate.

And the last thing I wanted to show you here was exterior painting work. If you are doing any exterior painting, go and get rid of that search term. We can see what's included here. It's gonna cover everything from rental equipment to painting siding, masonry, stucco, trim, lattice, columns, and so on, as well as things like deck and porch floor, porch ceiling, porch railings, and what have you.

So practically everything you're gonna need for a porch replacement cost estimate is here. So with that all being said, I'd like to really get into the estimate I wanna work on today.

To that end, I put together a takeoff list. This is just an overview of everything I need to get priced out in this project. I've kinda went through the area where we're gonna be replacing this porch. I've referenced my plans and put together this list along with quantities and dimensions of all the different tasks that need to get priced out here.

So I'm gonna take this take off list and use this to build our estimate today. It helps to have a lot of these details already set to go when you're getting started. This is gonna make it much easier for you to price out your estimate in the system. Now in this case, what we're gonna work on today is just a two hundred square foot basic concrete porch replacement estimate.

We're just gonna be demoing the existing structure. We're gonna be pouring a new slab, installing some roofing, and so on here. So all of this is all laid out for me here. Everything I need to do with measurements laid out for each, and we're gonna use this to price out our estimate.

Now I could go line by line. Obviously, we were just looking at all these different costs for demolition as well as things like excavation and concrete. So I could go through the part library line by line and just find what I need and plug in all my measurements here. But to save a little bit of time on this estimate, I'm actually gonna use one of the clear estimates templates to build out my project.

So to do that, I'm gonna make sure I'm right here on my projects page and we're gonna go ahead and click add template right here.

And then we're gonna use this select a category drop down to take a look at what types of templates are available. Now similar to parts, the templates are also categorized. You're gonna see templates for things like additions and bathrooms and demolition. But what we're looking for right here is decking. So we're gonna go ahead and click decking.

And then we're gonna use this middle drop down to select a specific templates. We have a number of different templates for decks, a lot of replacement work for things like deck railing and skirt replacement, step replacement, surface replacement, and so on. But then further down, we'll get into complete new build deck templates in cedar, composite, pressure treated. And then a little further down, we're gonna start seeing our porch templates. So here are new porches on concrete slabs, on deck structure, either in premium or basic grade. And this just refers to the quality of materials that we're gonna be using.

And then further down here, we have some replacement templates. So we have replaced porch on concrete slab, premium or basic. So this is what I'm gonna use right here. Replace porch on concrete slab basic.

Now when I click the template, what we're gonna see is that it's just a list of suggested parts that are commonly seen in this type of an estimate. And it's gonna cover as much ground as possible. So we're gonna see parts here for project prep and demolition and excavation, plenty included for concrete and framing, as well as things like trim work, painting and so on. So there's so much kind of built into the template, but it is just a starting point and we'll wanna fine tune this for our job's needs.

I also recommend take a look at these descriptions. It's gonna tell you what's included in the template. It's gonna give you as much detail as possible here about what the template includes for this porch replacement.

Now in this case, I've kind of already looked through this. This looks just like the template I'm gonna need for my specific job.

Now what's great about these templates is that all of these parts in the templates have formulas attached that tie back to this template quantity right here. So what this allows us to do is save a little bit of time just by plugging in the square footage of the porch that we're gonna be replacing here.

So I'm gonna go ahead and take a look at my takeoff list here, and I do see that we have two hundred square feet porch replacement that we're gonna be doing. So I'm gonna come back into my template and I'm gonna go ahead and plug this in as my template quantity, two hundred square feet. And then we'll go ahead and click calculate quantities right here. And then clear estimates is going to suggest individual quantities for each of these parts based on a two hundred square foot porch replacement cost estimate.

Now remember, you don't wanna think about this as a starting point. So what we wanna do is we wanna go through this template. We wanna compare all of these items to the measurements we have here defined in our takeoff just to make sure everything is correct.

So I go ahead and go line by line here. So let's go ahead and just take a look at a couple of lines. Just make sure things are looking correct. Now you do wanna just double check every single thing in the template, see what it's suggesting in case you do need to make any adjustments.

So for example, here I have demolish existing porch and existing roof here. And it's a hundred and fifty square feet of each. Now looking at the template, let's see what we've got included for that. I do have a part here for demolish porch and deck roof structure, up to a hundred and sixty square feet.

Now you might see this sometimes in the software. Certain items will say up to a certain square footage. What that means is that quantity one of this part accounts for the cost. So up to a hundred and sixty square feet of area.

So in this case, we can just leave this at quantity one since we need one hundred and fifty square feet of existing porch and existing roof, demoed here. And we can just leave this all kind of built into this one single item here with our cost.

And then we can kind of move right along here. So we can go through these different items and just make sure everything is accounted for. So do we have a line for debris removal? Do we have a line for, machine excavating the soil at fifteen yards? And we also wanna double check these quantities. So let's go ahead and see what we've got in excavation costs here.

I do have cost for excavation by machine.

But I'm seeing it suggesting thirteen cubic yards. And here on my takeoff, I actually have fifteen cubic yards of soil to excavate. So we're just gonna go ahead and click into that quantity column and make that adjustment here to fifteen cubic yards. And that's really gonna dial in the cost of this line item for exactly what we need, fifteen cubic yards here. So you can see that you can end up just go through these lines, you can click into these quantity columns, make any adjustments as needed.

Now, and I could go through here line by line, and this is what you're gonna wanna do when you're building this estimate is just go through and make sure everything is accounted for.

So I would do wanna go ahead and just take a look at my concrete parts, make sure all of this is priced out correctly.

And let's just go ahead and make sure that we have all of the reinforcement.

We have the forms as well as the monolithic footing in slab.

And everything looks good there. And let's just double check our quantities against what we have in our take off list and just make sure all of these look correct.

Port footing.

And everything looks good here. Okay. Great. So all the concrete parts look correct. This is exactly what I need. Keep in mind if there's any deviation from what you have here in your takeoff, you can always of course click into this quantity column and make any adjustments.

So I'm gonna do the same thing here, just kind of moving right along. Next up is all of my roofing materials. And I just need to make sure that all of these different scopes of work are accounted for and that their quantities are correct.

So let me go ahead and take a look at what we've got in the template for my roofing materials.

I'm just gonna go line by line here. It's good.

My drip edge at sixty. Let's just make sure that's correct.

That's just what I need.

Right now I'm just double checking that my shingles are going to be fiberglass at two eighty square feet.

Yes. Fiberglass shingle roofing felt is the same ice and water shield aluminum step flashing.

Then I also have porch ceiling materials, two hundred square feet pine. So let's go see what we have for that.

Here is install porch ceiling. Oh, and here here's a great example. So here I have installed porch ceiling for plywood, three eighths at two hundred square feet. So the quantity is correct but the material isn't. So in my takeoff here, I have pine porch sealing materials. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go and uncheck this porch sealing part from the template because this isn't relevant for my project because it's plywood rather than pine.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna mark off on my take off that I'll still need to come back here later and do something with this part. So I'm just gonna highlight this so I know to come back and, add a separate part in from the library.

Let me just go ahead and check all of my trim, install six inch fascia and soffit both at fifty eight linear feet. That's gonna be down here in exterior trim.

I have soffit and fascia and suggesting sixty linear feet for these. So I'm just gonna go ahead and adjust these over to fifty eight to match the measurements from my plans here.

That's just gonna dial in the cost of those items a little better.

Gable louver vent and vinyl siding at forty square feet.

K. That's great. And install vinyl siding. That's just what I need.

And again, if there's any deviation from what you have in your takeoff, just very easily click into this quantity column, make an adjustment. And if you don't need something, just go ahead and uncheck it.

And then I just need to make sure I also got a part in my takeoff for staining in case I need to remove this from the template.

And that's actually the last thing I need to do as far as these template items and that's two hundred square feet. So that's just what I need. So this is what you wanna do. You'll just wanna kinda go through all of these items.

You see we adjusted some of these quantities. We unchecked some of the parts that aren't gonna be relevant to our estimate. And this way we can add all of these parts in bulk at once into our project and save us the time of looking through these different cost items one by one. So let's go ahead and add this template into our project here.

And you'll see it's gonna copy and paste that entire template into our project. Now we're still not done because on my takeoff, I still have some worksite clean up I wanted to price out. This is typically gonna be found in the finalization category, so we'll go ahead and click browse part library and we'll go into finalization.

And this is where a lot of your site cleaning, loading hall and dumping debris, dumpster rental items are gonna be found. If you did need to rent a dumpster for this, particular cost estimate, you can just very easily plug that in.

I'm gonna go ahead and grab some oop. Go ahead and grab some general cleaning, labor costs here.

And we'll see what we've got out here for Decker porch cleanup, and this is just what I need. So I'm gonna go ahead and grab Decker porch cleanup, two hundred to two hundred and fifty square feet here. I'm gonna go ahead and grab that. I just need quantity one, and we'll add that part into our estimate.

And then we still also need to do add a different part for port ceiling. So right now, I'm gonna go ahead and see what we've got for a pine port ceiling.

Perfect. So this first item looks great. Install port ceiling, pine v joint one by six. I'm gonna go ahead and click that. And then let's just see what we've got in our takeoff for that. Two hundred square feet of course. Let's go ahead and plug that in as our quantity.

That's gonna price out our port ceiling and we're gonna go ahead and add that part into our project as well.

And so now I've got everything I needed from my takeoff now priced out in the project. With the help of that template, I saved a lot of time. Just to recap, we just clicked add template. We went into decking.

We scrolled down and found our porch replacement cost, templates down here. In this case, I just grabbed concrete slab basic. After that, I plugged in my square footage and calculated. And then what I did was just kind of reference this takeoff, go through each of these items one by one, adjust any quantities.

I unchecked anything I didn't need and then we added the template in bulk to our project and then from there, I just added any remaining items I needed from the library. Now you can see we haven't even been on that long. I've already got this entire estimate set to go. Now at this point, we would just wanna kind of double check our costs, make sure everything looks good.

Now in certain cases, you might be working with a subcontractor. Keep in mind that all of our part costs are pre markup and pretax, including the labor rates, so they don't include the typical markup a, subcontractor might include in their cost. But if that's the case, you can always pop open any of these parts. You can remove this in house labor cost, plug in a subcontractor cost, Save it.

And then we can even mark up our subcontractor cost right here using the subcontractor markup toggle. So it's really flexible enough for any situation like that. And here you can see we can just set up our markup percentage for material labor and sub and that's automatically gonna get calculated into the project cost here.

So before we move on, let's go ahead and just take a quick look at the proposal. So we're gonna do that by clicking view report and print to PDF, and we're gonna see what this is gonna look like when we send this off to the client.

And so here is our proposal. You can see I've already kinda plugged in my company logo when I signed up. I have a paragraph of legal language I've included on all of my estimates. And then we're gonna get into the estimate contents itself.

And you can see, you know, we didn't type any of this out. We didn't look up any of these costs. Clear estimates is just gonna automatically print out a professional sentence of text that explains the scope of work even kind of organized by category here for the client in language they can easily understand. And then we have a subtotal for the total project cost.

Now in this case, I actually have a payment schedule.

There is a walk through that shows how to set up things like payment schedules as well as invoice on the estimate. If you're curious about that, just click the support drop down, go to support information.

We actually have a whole walk through on both invoicing as well as payment schedules that you can look at right here. So these are great resources if you wanna get started with that.

And then the only other thing I didn't mention here is that there is no sales tax included in the material cost. If you do need to add in a line for sales tax, you could do that using miscellaneous items. These are really easy to set up. You just click the plus, You plug in a description. You can say something like sales tax and then you can set this up either as a dollar amount or a percentage. You know, if I just wanted to quickly add in a six percent sales tax, I can do that very easily.

Keep in mind that components, these are great for multiple room or multiple phase estimates. So maybe you had a double level porch estimate. You wanted to have two different sections for them. You could set these as components.

Alternates are great for change orders and there's more information on both of these tools. If you just hover over this little question mark, there'll be links here that kinda walk you through how to use these features. So very convenient features there. And that really about wraps up the process here for us.

You can see how quickly we were able to assemble this estimate using up to date costs specifically from our area. And like I mentioned, our focus is really this cost data. We draw on a number of data sources to provide you with reliable costs and these material costs are gonna be updated for you automatically every quarter. Labor rates updated for you annually.

Now as a subscriber, you'll also receive our quarterly behavior index monitoring changes in material costs over time and changes seen per region for different types of materials. So it's gonna save you the time researching costs, typing out estimates, drafting invoices, all of this is going to be handled for you automatically right in the system.

Now while we still have a few minutes here, I am just gonna share out a couple of quick resources for you.

First off, if you have questions about clear estimates before you sign up, we'd love to chat. Feel free to schedule a demo here with our team. This is a QR code that you can scan. It's gonna take you right to our calendar.

Or if you're just ready to try it out for yourself, feel free to do so. Feel free to sign up for a thirty day free trial. This is a QR code that'll take you right to the sign up page where you can get started. The trial is the full version of clear estimates free for thirty days.

No limitations. We even offer walk throughs with your trial. This is a QR code. You can go ahead and scan this with your phone.

It'll take you right to where you can sign up or you can just go to clear estimates dot com. And if you've already signed up for a trial and you're a current subscriber and you'd like to schedule a training call, feel free to do so. This QR code will take you right to our calendar to schedule a call. You can also just go to the link that's listed down there at the bottom and schedule some time with us.

And if you, do have any trouble with these QR codes and you just want us to send those resources over to you, feel free to reach out to us. Or if you just have questions about the presentation or just wanna get in touch, reach us at support at clear estimates dot com. There's also chat support available in clear estimates nine to five eastern, Monday through Friday. You can use this little chat bubble down here to send us a message, ask a question, we'd be more than happy to help out. So I do wanna thank everyone so much for joining in with us today. Hopefully this was informative for you. If you do have any questions, do feel free to reach out and we look forward to catching up with you at the next one.

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