This is the question I’m asked the most and I’ve struggled to answer it. Honestly I get it. Almost all of my clients are real people with real houses and real concerns about their finances. I have concerns about my finances too. You and I are in the same boat.
One way the question is asked is, “can you give me a ballpark price?” The reason that’s hard to answer is because when I write proposals, I typically give options that affect the price. You’d like your garage insulated? Initial here, and it adds some to the total. Paying by check? There’s a discount. The price for my recommended level of insulation is higher than you’d like? Choose a lower level, and pay less.
One project I proposed recently could be $7327.07 or $11,790.29, depending on the options chosen.
Since I’ve been doing this a long time, I have a decent data set to work with, and the scientist in me loves data so here’s my stab at it. Something to consider is that in almost all cases, my clients choose a higher-priced option. You might choose a project that has a lower cost. I didn’t drill down any deeper into the data to differentiate between the variables that my clients have chosen. I just wanted to answer the question, “What are people paying?” I felt like that might be more useful.
I took the prices that my clients have paid and put them into this inflation calculator to bring them up to today’s prices. Here are all my insulation projects, but only the ones I’ve done in Hawaii (I’ve been doing this a lot longer than I’ve lived on the Big Island):
Some of those are outliers. They were big, or they used some Very Special Products, or they were challenging for one reason or another. If we take out the weirdos it looks like this, which is “more reasonable”:
That’s still quite a range, but since I’ve been doing this in Hawaii we’ve had a pandemic. A lot of my clients started working from home and “comfort” wasn’t just a luxury any more. It became a necessity when they were trying to focus but couldn’t. One of my clients was a therapist, and before their attic was insulated they couldn’t see any clients after 2:00. It was too hot. I distilled my projects down into “post-pandemic blown attic insulation”:
One of the reasons for looking at post-pandemic data is that COVID really disrupted prices My materials have more than DOUBLED since the pandemic. So I ask you to think about that when your friend/neighbor/internet/AI/dad tells you “what something should cost.” I agree with them, but if their data is old then their opinions aren’t worth as much as they once were. This is the breakdown of price per project, post-pandemic, and it includes all insulation projects:
Hopefully there’s enough there to help you figure out pricing. The chart for “just blown attic insulation projects” doesn’t look much different.
But I know you. You’re the “how much per square foot” guy. I never have an answer for that, because what kind of square foot is it?
Where’s the square foot? Do I have to drive far to get to it?
What kind of square foot is it? Do I have to torque my body to get from one square foot to another? How many times?
What kind of roof is over the square foot? Concrete tiles (hot), shingles (very hot), metal (burn-you hot)?
Can I stand up on the square foot? Do I have to crawl or trapeze through trusses?
Will the square foot hurt me?
That’s a real question. Will I be hurt at the end of the project? Much of the time, “square-foot pricing” question assumes a big market, like there’s a dozen young bucks out there happily hanging out in attics all day, and their employers are competing against each other, and they’re all competing over the same square foots.
The Hawaii market isn’t like that. Also, FYI, when you hire Terrawatt, you’re hiring ME. I’m in my mid-50s. I’m the one that will climb into your attic for a day. I’m not sending “some guys.” I am onsite, I am experienced, and I am the quality control.
But after all this, you still want square-foot pricing. That’s OK. Since there are all kinds of square foots, I typically categorize attics in my pricing spreadsheet as easy, medium or hard, but to me it’s immaterial since I don’t price projects by the square foot anyway. But for you, I figured a square-foot price, but only for the projects that were for blown attic insulation, since that’s why most people call me:
Hopefully there’s enough information there for you to figure out if you’d like me to do a site visit. I haven’t even gotten into “paybacks.” I very much dislike the conversation about “payback” when it comes to insulation. Even here, where electricity costs more than almost anywhere in the US. It’s more math, but not too much math. This blog has enough math in it already. Someday I’ll drill into that but today is not that day.
If you want a takeway, the takeaway is “insulation costs less than air conditioning.” I have a client right now whose HECO bill is almost $900/month. They installed air conditioning, but have no attic insulation. I’m not saying that “insulation” will negate their HECO bill. That would be ridiculous. I’m saying that the amount you send to HECO will be less. That’s what we call an “absolute.”
After looking at all that and you’d like for me to do a site visit, get in touch. I’m happy to help.
But even after all that, you’re still wondering about how much a project might cost, I’ll say this. It’s been a decade since I’ve created a change order. I don’t “estimate” projects. I tell you what I will charge for them and don’t guess about them, because “estimates” are guesses. I don’t guess.
Just know that whatever project price I give you, someone else has paid it.
