Methodology and sources

All figures were read from the sources below on October 20, 2026. Nothing on the site is estimated by the site itself: every number is either quoted from a source or computed from quoted numbers with the formulas on this page.

Sources

Formulas

National range. low = material low price per unit × size; high = material high price × size. Heat pumps: a ducted system takes the guide's row for the home size (rounded up to the next listed size); a ductless system takes the guide's single range.

Labor index. factor = median hourly wage of the trade in the town's BLS wage area ÷ US median for that trade. Where BLS publishes no figure for the area, the New Hampshire statewide median is used, and the page says so. Trades: roofers (roof), carpenters (siding, deck), construction laborers (fence), paving equipment operators (asphalt and gravel driveways), cement masons (concrete driveways), HVAC mechanics (heat pumps).

Local estimate. local low = national low + labor low × (factor − 1); same for high. Labor low/high is the guide's labor dollars per unit × size, or its stated labor share × the installed price (gravel driveway 50%; heat pump 50%, the middle of the 40–60% the source gives). Removal, where offered, is all labor: removal price per unit × size × factor. The midpoint is the average of low and high. Shown figures are rounded to $10 below $1,000 and to $50 above.

Permit fee. The town's own published line, applied to the midpoint estimate (or the area in square feet where the town charges by area). A page marks whether the schedule names the work or whether the town's general residential rate is applied. Minimums, application fees, rounding and surcharges are applied as the schedule states them.

What is left out

Roof: tile, slate, wood shake, flat. Left out of the launch set; asphalt and metal cover most New Hampshire re-roofs and the guide's wood-shake figures contradict each other ($7–$15 in the table, $25–$30 in the text).

Fence: composite, wrought iron. Rarely quoted for homes; not in the launch set.

Heat pump: geothermal. Drilling dominates the price and varies by site; no per-unit figure to localize.

Heat pump: federal tax credit. The cost guide still quotes the 25C credit; federal law ended it for equipment placed in service after 2025, so the site does not show it.

Gate, ductwork and add-on items. Fence gates have no stated price in the guide; ductwork ($40–$65 per linear foot) depends on a run length the site cannot know.

Fence erectors (47-4031) as the fence labor index. BLS publishes no New Hampshire area estimate except Boston-Cambridge-Newton; construction laborers (47-2061) are published for every NH area and are used instead.

Nashua, Concord, Dover, Keene, Derry, Laconia, Windham, Pelham, Amherst, Milford, Bedford, Claremont. No current fee schedule with stated amounts could be read on the town's own site on 2026-10-20 (blocked, a form with blank fee fields, a budget document, or a schedule kept in an appendix that is not online). Their towns can still use the calculator through the county option.

Hanover. The fee ordinance found online is the 1996 revision; it could not be confirmed as current.

Meredith. The schedule online is marked as a proposed change (8/21/25).

Holderness, Middleton, Wolfeboro. Schedules were unlabelled, contained an obvious error, or could not be read as text.

Hampton. The search result for a Hampton fee schedule was Hampton, Virginia; the New Hampshire town's schedule was not found.

Town pages without a fee. A town and project get a page only when the town's schedule names the work or sets a general residential rate that covers it. Fences and driveways are rarely on schedules, so few towns have those pages. Every town page still shows labor-adjusted estimates for all six projects.

Other states. The launch covers New Hampshire only. State pages for the rest of the country are not built: the labor index exists for every state, but no town permit data has been collected outside New Hampshire.

Known gaps

• The Boston-Cambridge-Newton wage area covers Rockingham and Strafford counties but is mostly Massachusetts, so its index runs higher than New Hampshire wages; pages show the statewide figure beside it.
• The fence labor figure (Inch Calculator) was last updated in July 2023, older than the 2025-2026 installed prices.
• The estimates have not yet been checked against real New Hampshire contractor quotes.

Refresh

Cost guides and fee schedules are re-read every six months; wage data each year after BLS publishes the May estimates (usually in spring); population each July when the state publishes its estimates.