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Home Addition Costs
How to Accurately Estimate Home Addition Costs
By: Mark J. Donovan
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Building a home addition can
frequently cost more than an interior home remodeling project. Unlike finishing
a basement or an attic conversion project, a home addition requires new ground
and foundation work as well as exterior framing and construction. Consequently
building a home addition is typically one of the more expensive routes for
creating additional home living space.
Estimating Home
Addition Costs
When planning a home addition, it is
important to think through and list every phase of the project to most
accurately estimate the total home addition costs. |
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Creating this list also enables
you to determine what type of subcontractors you will need for the project.
For example, the new foundation work will require an excavator and a
foundation installer at a minimum. If the home addition impedes upon an
existing leach field or may go over existing underground power, gas or
plumbing lines and pipes, septic installers and utility companies may need
to be brought into the project.
Calculating home addition costs
is typically done on a cost per square foot basis.
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The accuracy of estimating the cost
of a home addition depends upon how thorough you are with planning your project
and how solid your contractor and subcontractor quotes are. Consequently to
accurately calculate home addition costs, it is imperative that your list of
project phases is complete and that you obtain firm, fixed quotes from
contractors.
With a complete home addition cost breakdown spreadsheet you can quickly
calculate the total cost of your home addition.
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By taking this total cost and
dividing it by the number of additional square feet associated with the new home
addition you can arrive at a cost per square foot number. See my
Home
Addition Bid Sheets to learn more on how to plan and estimate
costs for a home addition project.
| The cost per square foot of a home addition can vary widely
depending upon where you live, economic conditions, and the type of home
addition you are building. Home addition costs per square feet can also vary
widely even on the same project. Thus it is important to get several
contractor or subcontractor quotes for each phase of the home addition
project. With multiple contractor quotes for each phase of the project you
can determine a better total average cost per square foot for your specific
home addition project. |
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In addition, you can even determine
an average cost per square foot for each phase of the project. With this
information you can then determine which contractors/subcontractors are out of
line with their specific quotes.
Though home addition costs are
typically higher than finishing a basement or attic, it may not always be the
case, and thus a home addition maybe the most cost effective solution. Specific
circumstances in finishing a basement, such as basement moisture problems or low
hanging plumbing pipes could significantly increase the cost per square foot of
a basement remodeling project. Consequently a basement remodeling project could
potentially have costs that are on par, or even higher than building a home
addition.
So when contemplating building a home
addition or creating more living space within the existing home, make sure you
consider the total cost for each option. Home addition costs are typically more
expensive then a home remodeling project, but not in all cases. It depends
heavily upon your specific living space requirements, and your home’s unique set
of conditions. It is also important to recognize that cost may not be the only
factor in your decision process. Property setbacks and personal tastes on
creating additional home living space can and should play a major role in your
decision process.
For more help on building a home addition, see HomeAdditionPlus.com's
Room
Addition Bid Sheet.
The
Room
Addition Bid Sheet
provides you with the knowledge on how to plan a house addition project,
and what to look for when hiring contractors for your new home construction. It
also includes a detailed cost breakdown table and spreadsheet for estimating
your own new home addition building costs.
How to Finance your Home Remodeling Project -
can help provide funds for your new home improvement project if financing is
required.
Related Building Home Addition Articles
Additional Home Renovation and
Construction Resources from Amazon.com
Free Home Addition
Price Quotes with No Obligation!
Fill out our 3-5 minute quick and easy form, and receive a free price quote
on a home addition from one of our prescreened and licensed home addition
contractors. This process is free and there is no obligation to continue once
you receive your house addition price estimate.
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