Check My Home Quote

How we estimate

Each estimate starts from NREL's Residential Efficiency Measures Database 2024 (REMDB), which gives low, mid and high retail prices for each kind of equipment by size and efficiency, in 2023 dollars, and how much installation adds.

  1. Equipment is brought to today with the BLS Producer Price Index for that equipment (for example water heaters, latest 2026-05).
  2. Installation is brought to today with BLS national wages for the trade (May 2023 to May 2025), then multiplied by your area's wage for the trade divided by the national median. That local factor is our model.
  3. Your ZIP is matched to its county by the largest land overlap (Census 2020), then to the BLS wage area, then to your state, then the national figure if a wage is not published.
  4. Efficiency is offered as Not sure, Standard, High and Top. These tiers are our grouping of the range our source covers, not industry grades: Standard is the lowest value we offer inside REMDB's range (raised to the federal minimum where one applies, 10 CFR 430.32), Top the highest, High the value nearest the middle, and Not sure the page's typical case. Each choice shows the value we price, for example "High (SEER2 18)" on the central AC page.
  5. Federal minimums. Central AC and heat pump estimates assume a split system (outdoor unit plus indoor coil or air handler); single-package units are not modelled. The Southwest's extra EER2 requirement is not modelled either. To apply the 45,000 Btu/h line in the Southeast and Southwest we count nominal tons × 12,000 Btu/h; that conversion is our reading, as the rule uses each unit's certified capacity.
  6. Totals are rounded to $50. Inputs outside REMDB's range are priced at the nearest size it covers.
  7. We check the results against EIA's 2023 cost study and the low end against the Census American Housing Survey.

We read REMDB's replacement installation figure as covering removal of the old unit. Permit fees are not in the estimate; each tool page shows a typical permit fee beside it, from the published fee schedules of 39 places we sampled across the four Census regions. Only fees a schedule states for the job count (fees we had to infer from a nearest line, a maximum or a valuation are listed on Sources but not used). With 8 or more such fees in your region we show the middle half of them (25th to 75th percentile); with 5 to 7, the range across them; with fewer than 5, the national figure, labelled. Local surcharges (technology, records, state fees) are left out unless the schedule includes them, so check your building department for your fee.

For a heat pump, and for a heat pump water heater, you choose the job type. A like-for-like replacement on working ducts and wiring is anchored on the U.S. EIA's 2023 cost study; a new install or a job with upgrades uses REMDB as it stands, because REMDB's figures come from real projects that often included that extra work. Where we have no sound anchor for a simple swap (ductless one-room units, whole-house electric tankless), we show the REMDB range only.

Central AC shows a range only: REMDB's AC price row is a weak fit, so a single typical figure would overstate what we know.

Bathroom remodels use a different source: what households reported paying a professional in the Census Bureau's American Housing Survey 2023 (jobs done 2021–23). We bring those prices to today with one factor, the BLS producer price index for inputs to residential construction, goods (series WPUIP2311001): the index for 2026-08 over its 2021, 2022 and 2023 averages, weighted by each year's share of the survey's bathroom jobs (2021 22%, 2022 50%, 2023 28%), a factor of 1.156. It is the one published construction price index we could verify; it tracks materials, not labour, so the adjustment is our estimate. The range is the 25th to 75th percentile for your region, or nationally where the survey has too few jobs for a reliable regional figure. Home size scales the range by the ratio of each size group's median to the national median (a proxy: the survey records home size, not bathroom size). The scope choice moves only the typical figure within the range; that placement is our estimate.

These are estimates, not quotes.

Cost data: NREL, Residential Efficiency Measures Database 2024 (OEDI submission 8336), licensed CC BY 4.0. We changed it: prices are uplifted to today with BLS PPI, localised with BLS OEWS wages, and rounded. NREL does not endorse this site.

Cross-checks and like-for-like anchors: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Updated Buildings Sector Appliance and Equipment Costs and Efficiencies (2023).

Cost data: U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey 2023 national public use file (jobs done 2021–23), our percentiles. The Census Bureau does not endorse this site.