Homewyse Improvements and Enhancements - March 2018

Wage updates, craftsman quality pricing support and improved consistency with material option pricing are the latest enhancements to the homewyse.com cost estimating calculators

The cost estimating calculators at homewyse.com now reflect the following changes:

• Wage Increases Updates include higher wages across the spectrum for home construction and remodeling professionals. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, market wages in have increased by 0.3%.
• Material Increases Updates include higher material prices for roofing, framing lumber and coatings. Increases range from 0.1% to 0.2%.
• Calculator Consistency Costs for some similar tasks in the Material Option Estimators and the Installation Calculators have in the past appeared to be different. Although the underlying cost factors are the same, different default settings for the Material estimators have caused a cost discrepancy for default cost estimates for similar items. Typically, the Material estimators used "higher" grade material and labor quality as defaults, wherease the Installation calculators used "mid-grade" material and "basic" labor quality. As a result, Material calculators seemed significantly higher than Installation calculators for a similar item. We've remedied this issue in this release of homewyse. Now the default Material estimate options have been set to the same levels used in the Installation calculators - establishing per unit cost agreement between similar calculators.