New Orleans, LA
NEW ADDITIONS ESTIMATING.

## Estimating Home Additions in New Orleans Is Its Own Discipline Adding square footage in New Orleans is not the same job it is in Phoenix or Denver. You are building on expansive clay soils that shift seasonally, in a flood zone that dictates finished floor elevations, through a permitting office that enforces the New Orleans Building Code alongside Louisiana State requirements. Your estimate has to account for all of that before you put a number in front of a homeowner. Estimate.Pro is built for the 25 trades that do real construction work, and addition contractors are one of them. The workflow goes from job-site walkthrough to a sendable bid in a median of 8 minutes. ## What Makes New Orleans Addition Work Harder to Price **Foundation complexity.** Most additions in Uptown, Mid-City, and Lakeview sit on pier-and-beam or slab-on-grade over fill. Before you frame a single wall, you need to know whether the existing foundation needs extending, reinforcing, or an entirely new footer design. That cost swings a bid by $8,000–$18,000 on a 400 sq ft addition. Estimate.Pro lets you build a saved material cost workspace so your foundation line items are pre-loaded with your actual supplier pricing — not national averages. **Flood zone compliance.** FEMA flood maps place large portions of Orleans Parish in Zone AE. Additions must meet the City's Base Flood Elevation requirements, which often means elevated framing, flood vents, or break-away wall construction on the ground level. If you miss this in your scope, you eat the cost. The app's AI scope-of-work generator prompts for flood zone classification during the walkthrough so it appears in the estimate, not as an afterthought after the permit review. **Historic district review.** Additions in the Garden District, Marigny, or Tremé that are visible from the street require Architectural Review Committee approval from the Historic District Landmarks Commission (HDLC). That process adds time and sometimes requires material substitutions — cedar siding over fiber cement, wood windows over vinyl — that change your materials budget. Your estimate needs a line for HDLC review fees and potential redesign time. **Humidity and envelope performance.** ASHRAE Climate Zone 2A covers New Orleans. Additions need a vapor barrier strategy, continuous air sealing, and mechanical sizing that accounts for latent heat load. If you are subcontracting the HVAC, your bid should still reflect the Manual J load calculation requirements the mechanical sub will use — otherwise your client gets a surprise from the HVAC contractor and blames the addition price. ## How Estimate.Pro Handles the Walkthrough You open the app on-site. You walk the space — the existing structure, the addition footprint, the tie-in points. On supported devices, ONNX-assisted live AR measurement captures dimensions as you move. On any device, camera and photo measurements work too and are clearly marked as estimates on the output so your client knows what was field-measured versus estimated. The AI reads your walkthrough notes and generates a scope-of-work that covers demo, foundation, framing, sheathing, roofing tie-in, windows, insulation, drywall, trim, and MEP rough-in coordination. You review it, adjust line items against your saved cost workspace, and send the bid. Eight minutes is the median from walkthrough start to a PDF your client can sign. ## Permits and Licensing in Orleans Parish The Department of Safety and Permits (DOSP) handles residential addition permits in New Orleans. A building permit for a residential addition is required for any structural work, and separate trade permits are required for electrical, mechanical, and plumbing work tied to the addition. Louisiana requires a residential contractor license from the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) for any project over $75,000. Below that threshold, the homeowner registration exemption may apply, but you should verify current LSLBC rules before quoting. Building your permit fee into the estimate is standard practice. For a 400 sq ft addition, expect the DOSP building permit fee to run in the $400–$700 range depending on valuation, with separate trade permit fees on top. ## Pricing and Plans Estimate.Pro has a free forever tier — no credit card, no trial clock. If you want Stripe Connect invoicing with zero platform fee and full invoice export, that is the Elite plan at $79 per seat per month. The Pro plan runs $39 per seat per month. Multi-crew operations use the Crew flat rate at $399 per month. The Free tier carries a 3% Stripe Connect fee; Pro and above drop that to 0%. If you are a solo addition contractor doing five bids a month, the free tier gets you scoped and priced faster than your current spreadsheet. If you are running crews on back-to-back kitchen addition and master suite projects, Pro or Crew pays for itself in the first job you win because your bid got there first.