Chicago, IL
SIDING ESTIMATING.

## Siding Estimates in Chicago Move Fast — Your Bid Has to Keep Up Chicago's housing stock is demanding. You're quoting century-old greystone two-flats with irregular coursing one week and vinyl re-sides on postwar bungalows in Bridgeport the next. The material takeoff math changes every job. The weather window doesn't wait. Estimate.Pro is built so you can walk a job, capture measurements, and send a priced bid before you leave the neighborhood. --- ## What Makes Siding Estimating Different in Chicago **Freeze-thaw movement.** Chicago's climate puts real stress on cladding systems. You're specifying moisture barriers, proper nailing schedules, and expansion gaps on every job — not as extras, but as standard practice. Your estimate has to reflect that labor correctly, or your margin disappears on the first cold snap. **Varied architecture.** Chicago has one of the most mixed housing inventories in the country. Brick and masonry facades are common, which means you're often bidding partial siding jobs — gable ends, dormers, additions — not full wraps. Takeoff tools that assume a clean rectangular envelope will put you in the hole. **Permit requirements.** The City of Chicago requires permits for exterior cladding replacement on most residential structures. The Chicago Department of Buildings enforces energy code compliance under the Chicago Energy Conservation Code (CECC), which aligns with ASHRAE 90.1 requirements for continuous insulation in Climate Zone 5. If you're installing insulated vinyl or fiber cement over existing sheathing, your scope-of-work needs to document the CI layer. Estimate.Pro's AI-generated scope notes flag this automatically. **Seasonal compression.** The Midwest bidding season is front-loaded. Siding demand in Chicago spikes from April through June as homeowners line up work before summer. If your bid takes two days to produce, another contractor gets the call. --- ## How Estimate.Pro Works for Siding Contractors **Walkthrough → scope in minutes.** Use the app on-site. AR measurement on supported devices gives you wall area, window deductions, and gable calculations without a ladder or a tape measure on every run. Camera and photo measurements are marked as estimates so you know what to verify. **Squares and waste factors built in.** Set your waste percentage by profile type — lap siding, shake, vertical board — and the calculator adjusts automatically. You're not doing that math in a spreadsheet at 10 PM. **Saved material cost workspace.** Keep your current pricing for James Hardie, LP SmartSide, CertainTeed, and housewrap in one place. When material costs shift — and in Chicago's market, they do — you update once and every new estimate reflects it. **AI scope-of-work generation.** After your walkthrough, the app drafts a written scope: existing cladding removal, WRB installation, flashing at windows and penetrations, siding installation, and trim work. You edit, not write from scratch. That's the difference between an 8-minute bid and a 45-minute one. **Send from the jobsite.** Clients get a professional PDF. No going back to the office. No chasing down a template. --- ## Pricing That Matches How Siding Contractors Work Estimate.Pro has a free tier — no credit card, no trial clock. If you're running solo or just want to test the workflow, you pay nothing. Pro is $39/seat/month. Elite is $79/seat/month and adds Stripe Connect invoicing at 0% platform fee, plus invoice exports for your accountant. Crew is $399/month flat for the whole company. If you're on the Free plan and collect payment through the app, the platform fee is 3%. Pro and above: $0. --- ## Chicago Is a Volume Market The city has over 600,000 housing units, most of them aging. Re-siding demand is consistent. The contractors who win more of it are the ones who respond first with a credible number. A slow estimate process is a lost job process. Estimate.Pro is built for the 25 trades that actually run jobs — siding is one of them. The calculators, the scope logic, and the material cost tools are specific to what you do, not adapted from generic construction software. Start free. Walk your next job with it.