Bathroom remodeling estimating software, and what a bathroom actually needs measured

Why most of these pages are the same page

One of the top results is an invoicing and financing platform whose bathroom page says every project is different and that the costs of site work and preparation alone are significant. Both true of a driveway.

Another, from a very large name, serves kitchens and bathrooms off one address under a headline about kitchen estimating, and its list of what an estimate should include runs cabinets, countertops, tile, flooring, demolition, plumbing, electrical, permits, contingency and timeline. Also a correct list for a kitchen, which is the point.

Two more results are listicle farms of the sort that will generate a top ten for any phrase you feed them. One is an App Store listing.

The best of them is a vendor listicle that ranks its own product first and at least tries. It says bathroom remodels are deceptively complex, that the work happens in a footprint smaller than a parking space and often in the only full bathroom in the house, and that the job is a relay race of dependencies where waterproofing comes before tile and tile has to cure before glass can be templated. All correct, all useful, and none of it is a measurement.

Nowhere on that page one does anybody say what to measure. So that is what this page does.

What is actually different about a bathroom

Three things, and they all push in the same direction.

It is the smallest room in the house with the most fixtures per square foot, so a four inch mistake is not a four inch mistake. It is a vanity that does not fit beside a door that no longer opens. Second, nearly everything in it is plumbing and waterproofing, which means the expensive surprises sit behind surfaces you cannot see on a walk through. Third, it is usually the only bathroom, so the schedule is not a convenience. It is the whole negotiation with the customer.

An estimating tool loaded with assemblies will price a tiled shower surround for you all day. What it cannot do is tell you that this particular shower has a window in the wet wall.

The eight measurements that move the number

These are the ones that change a bathroom quote, and the ones most often missing when somebody sends photographs and asks for a price.

• Door swing and what it clears. Which way it opens and what it hits at ninety degrees.
• Existing vanity width, and the clear run of wall it sits in.
• Window position in the wet wall. A window inside a tub or shower surround is a waterproofing detail, not a window.
• Ceiling height inside the surround, which decides tile quantity and whether a standard enclosure fits at all.
• Toilet rough in, the distance from the finished wall to the closet bolts.
• Floor to the top of the existing tile, and whether the old tile runs to the ceiling or stops short.
• Where the vent goes, outside or into the attic.
• How the subfloor feels underfoot at the toilet and the tub edge, which is the cheapest early warning you will get.