Pittsburgh, PA
NEW ADDITIONS ESTIMATING.

## Estimating Home Additions in Pittsburgh Takes More Than a Tape Measure Pittsburgh's housing stock is old. The median home in Allegheny County was built before 1960. That means most addition jobs here start with a reckoning — load-bearing masonry walls, knob-and-tube lurking behind plaster, floors that haven't been level since the Eisenhower administration. Before you can price the new square footage, you need to account for what the existing structure is going to cost you. Estimate.Pro is built for that complexity. You walk the site, capture measurements with live AR on supported devices, and let the AI generate a scope-of-work draft. Median time from walkthrough to a sendable bid: 8 minutes. You review, adjust for the quirks you found on the job, and send. --- ## Why Pittsburgh Addition Jobs Are Different **Hillside lots and foundation exposure.** A significant share of Pittsburgh parcels sit on slopes — think Squirrel Hill, Mount Washington, Lawrenceville's upper streets. A rear addition on a sloped lot often requires a daylight or walk-out foundation, not a simple slab. Your estimate needs a line for that excavation and the retaining work before the first stud goes up. **Row houses and semi-detached construction.** Large swaths of the city — Polish Hill, Bloomfield, Brookline — are row house and semi-detached stock. Side additions are essentially impossible on those lots. Second-story bump-outs and rear additions are the standard move. Framing assumptions that work in the suburbs don't apply here. **City of Pittsburgh building permits.** The City issues building permits through the Pittsburgh Bureau of Building Inspection (BBI). For a residential addition over 500 sq ft, expect a plan review cycle that can run 4–8 weeks. Structural drawings stamped by a PA-licensed engineer are required. Factor that into your project timeline and your client conversations. **Allegheny County soil conditions.** The Pittsburgh metro sits on a mix of shale bedrock and river-deposited fill, particularly near the three rivers and along run-off corridors. Soil borings aren't unusual on addition jobs where the new foundation footprint is significant. Price the contingency. --- ## What Estimate.Pro Handles for Addition Contractors Additions are multi-trade jobs. A single rear addition touches framing, roofing, electrical, HVAC, insulation, windows, and finish work — all coordinated under your GC margin. Estimate.Pro supports 25 trades in one platform, so you're building one estimate, not stitching together five spreadsheets. **AR measurement on supported devices.** Walk the existing footprint and the proposed addition area. The ONNX-assisted AR layer measures in real time and flags camera-only measurements as estimates so you know exactly what's field-verified and what needs a second look. **AI scope-of-work drafts.** After the walkthrough, the AI generates a line-item scope covering demolition of the existing exterior wall, new foundation type (slab, crawl, basement), framing, roofing tie-in, window and door rough openings, MEP rough-ins, insulation to current IECC requirements, and finish work. You own every line — edit, delete, reorder. **Saved material cost workspace.** Pittsburgh lumber and concrete pricing runs on its own cycle. You store your supplier pricing in the app and it populates into every new estimate. When costs move, you update once. **Stripe Connect invoicing at $0 platform fee on Pro+.** When the job is awarded, convert the estimate to an invoice and collect draws through Stripe Connect. Pro tier is 3% platform fee. Elite and Crew tiers are $0 platform fee. --- ## Pricing That Matches How You Operate - **Free forever** — no credit card, no time limit. Build estimates and see the platform. - **Pro at $39/seat/month** — full AR measurement, AI scope drafts, saved cost workspace. - **Elite at $79/seat/month** — adds Stripe Connect payments and invoice exports. - **Crew at $399/month flat** — unlimited seats for a full team. If you're a solo addition contractor running five to ten jobs a year in Pittsburgh, Pro covers everything you need. If you're running a crew across multiple active additions, Crew math is straightforward. --- ## The Bottom Line for Pittsburgh Addition Contractors You're competing against contractors who still fax bids and contractors who bought expensive software they barely use. Estimate.Pro sits in the middle: fast enough to bid more jobs, detailed enough to protect your margin on the complicated ones. Pittsburgh additions are complicated. The platform handles that.