Data checked · source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Field job cost calculator
Pick a job and a US metro area. The number you get is materials plus labour hours priced at that metro's government wage data — the same arithmetic as the job pages, not a lead form and not an average with nothing behind it.
What this actually calculates
Every figure is built the same way, and you can check each step on the job page it links to:
- Materials come from retailer and supply-house listings we opened and linked, with the date we checked them.
- Labour is a published hours range multiplied by a billed rate, and that rate is the BLS OEWS May 2025 median wage for that trade in that metro, times 2.21–3.19 for burden, overhead and profit. The multiplier is our assumption and it is published in full on the methodology page so you can disagree with it.
- Permit and disposal come from municipal fee schedules and published haul-away pricing.
Materials do not change when you change the metro area, because they mostly do not in real life. Labour does. That is why two cities can differ by a third on the same job.
This is not a quote. No contractor has agreed to any number here, and nothing on this page is sent to anybody. There is no form, no email field and no lead sale — if you want to know how this site pays for itself, we wrote that down on the disclosure page.
All 16 jobs, US national figures
Here without any JavaScript, so it works in a text browser, in a feed reader, and for an AI assistant reading the page. The calculator above is the same data re-priced for 49 metro areas.
| Job | Trade | Labour hours | US range | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole-house rewire | electrician | 20–90 hr | $10,000–$30,000 | $20,000 |
| Sewer line replacement | plumber | 8–56 hr | $2,500–$25,000 | $13,750 |
| Roof replacement | roofer | 29–66 hr | $5,779–$14,805 | $9,570 |
| Window replacement | carpenter | 13–40 hr | $2,826–$14,089 | $7,753 |
| Mini split installation | HVAC technician | 3–10 hr | $1,200–$13,500 | $7,350 |
| Interior painting | painter | 81–117 hr | $5,415–$11,584 | $8,220 |
| Tankless water heater installation | plumber | 2–16 hr | $1,490–$10,290 | $3,367 |
| Gutter installation | roofer | 2–12 hr | $900–$10,000 | $5,450 |
| Sump pump installation | plumber | 1–8 hr | $676–$8,329 | $1,135 |
| Central AC replacement | HVAC technician | 8–24 hr | $3,339–$6,538 | $4,323 |
| Gas furnace replacement | HVAC technician | 4–10 hr | $1,438–$5,584 | $1,966 |
| Water softener installation | plumber | 2–8 hr | $1,200–$5,000 | $3,100 |
| Tile installation | tile setter | 8–20 hr | $703–$3,958 | $1,748 |
| Water heater replacement | plumber | 2–5 hr | $653–$3,359 | $945 |
| Ceiling fan installation | electrician | 1–6 hr | $224–$2,894 | $365 |
| AC repair | HVAC technician | 0.5–8 hr | $116–$1,912 | $443 |
Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025, public domain. Materials and permit sources are linked individually on each job page. Checked August 13, 2026.
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We are not asking you for it. Keep it if the calculator earns it, drop it if it
does not, and the embed works the same either way. We would rather explain how it works than
quietly hope you leave it in.
If you are a journalist or a researcher and you want the underlying figures rather than the widget, the ready-to-cite tables are on the press page, and the whole calculation is written out on the methodology page.
What it cannot tell you
- Your actual quote. A contractor prices your house, your access, your rot and your city inspector. This prices a described reference job.
- Metros where BLS suppressed the wage. Those cities are left out of the list rather than estimated. If a metro is greyed out for a job, that is why.
- Anything outside the United States. OEWS is US-only.
- Owner-operator earnings. OEWS covers wage and salary workers, so in trades with many working owners the published median understates what an owner actually earns.