Siding Calculator updated – prices udjusted to 2012 levels, redesigned look, fixed errors.

We are happy to announce that we just did a slew of improvements and fixes to our online free siding estimator. We have also updated siding prices calculation algorithm to better reflect current (May 2012) siding prices for both materials and installation labor.

House Siding Prices calculation:

Vinyl siding costs were adjusted to current (2012) levels for 3 vinyl siding materials. Since we originally designed the our calculator in 2010, the prices of vinyl siding (and to a much lesser degree, other siding materials) went up an average of 30-40% due to “oil price increase” … honestly this has nothing to do with price of oil, as vinyl siding does not use petroleum products – it is mostly suppliers / manufacturers of vinyl siding trying to make more money.


We also adjusted installation labor costs for all three types of vinyl siding, as our original prices were based more on “subcontractor” level of labor costs. However, many homeowners often hire a GC or a remodeling company to install their house siding, and pay higher per-square prices.

– We have added the setting of Roof Slope to the calculator. This setting will estimate amount of siding materials needed to be installed on angled gable sections of your house.

– We temporarily removed setting for house type (Gable / Hip / Colonial / Victorian), as it was overlapping with roof slope setting. We want to make this mechanism of calculations more intuitive – eg. if you choose roof type to be “Hip”, that will automatically disable roof slope setting, as it becomes unnecessary, since there are no angled wall sections on roof-type houses.

– Siding calculation results are now presented in single line, and you can choose individual siding material for which you want pricing. Old results were presented ad grid, with all materials listed, and corresponding prices besides the material. This however was pushing down the rest of the page and did not look “good”.


– As mentioned in previous point – there is now a new setting to choose a siding material for which you want to calculate price.

Design changes / minor bug fixes:

We’ve made the calculator look “cleaner”: the setting titles are now in a single line, spacing between the fields is increased slightly, and titles were fixed to be more intuitive.

We’ve also changed the width of the calculator, and as mentioned in a report on price calculations update, the results are now presented in a single line.

We’ve also noticed there were two settings there were not utilized, and affected how prices are calculated. We removed “Roof / House type” setting, and fixed roof pitch setting.

We plan to port this new design and improved functionality to our free siding estimator for contractors’ websites.

You don’t have to wait till we do it – go ahead and grab this free widget now, place it into a page on your website, and when we roll out the update, it will show up automatically.

Siding Calculator APP update:

Finally, we wanted to let you know that Siding Calculator app for Android platform is almost ready, while iPhone version of our Siding Calculator app is available in App Store already. Find it on your iPhone / iPad, using AppStore app by searching for “siding” or “siding calculator”, or get it it here.

The upcoming update to the app will include multiple house section (if you have several structures or a cut-up home), results saving and export fictions via email, and use of GPS location, to get address of the property you are estimating. Our development team is already hard at work on bringing these updates to you.

We will also publish a User video guide that will explain how to properly use siding calculator app (we’ve had many questions on how to calculate Hardie / Cedar siding, vs. vinyl siding, and it is easier to show this in a video, rather than using text guides.

Thank you and stay tuned – SidingCalculator.org


Siding Estimating Software for Websites and mobile phones

This article will show you how to install our Siding Calculator on your company’s website. If you are interested in Siding Calculator App for iPhone and Android phones / tablets, click here.

With the recent update and improvements of siding calculator software (read more about it here) we now feel that siding calculator is ready for the prime-time or in other words to be available for installation on your website. We offer this free of charge, so now your clients will be able to estimate the siding materials and installation prices right on your site.

How does it work?

All you need to do to install a siding calculator on your site is to copy and paste little “snippet” code below and paste it anywhere on your webpage, between <body> and </body> tags. The calculator snippet is design to fit in a most common 640 px wide web-sight design, for most construction and siding installer websites it will fit right in. The calculator is using a black and white scheme, and no other color scheme will be offered (unless we create a custom calculator for you).

Siding Calculator snippet code – copy and paste AS IS – do not modify in any way and do not remove link to SidingCalculator.org – we provide this great tool for free, so be courteous and link back to us!



Here is what siding calculator will look like on your website:

Benefits of adding Siding Calculator to your firm’s website:

  • Ability for your customers to get approximate price quote instantly, without wasting your time on those who will never be your customers.
  • Let your customers know what you charge for your siding services, which will prevent the sticker shock when you do a siding estimate.
  • Built trust for your siding business, because you advertise your prices online – shady roofing contractors don’t do it and the rarely even have a website!
  • Siding Calculator simplifies your sales process, as both customer and roof estimator are on the same page.

Basically, I found that siding calculator works AWESOME for us – people already know what to expect in terms of pricing when the estimator shows up to measure a roof, and you avoid the “jaw-dropping effect” for the most part. We also sell more jobs now (percentage wise, as compared to total number of siding estimates we do) and we avoid 95% of price shoppers/tire kickers. Also the calculator pages attract internet traffic by themselves, and these site visitors turn into customers!

Here is a video that will walk you through installation of siding calculator on your website. This video was made for our sister website – RoofingCalculator.org and will work the same way for you to install the siding calculator software.

Custom siding calculator software:

Although the siding calculator we offer for free is more or less universal, it may not work for everyone. If you need a siding calculator made to work for your business, we can make any adjustments to the siding materials, prices, installation costs or how these prices are calculated, as well as adjust the calculator look and feel to blend into your website.

Most modification will not require much programming and will cost $195 / year licensing fee. If you require some serious modifications, cost will be discussed on case by case basis.

Siding Calculator app for mobile phones: iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and WM7:

As you may or may not know we have already released and published our Roofing Calculator app for Android phones and tablets, in the Android Market. And now, the iPhone version of Siding Calculator app is available in App Store, with Android version on the way to the Market. Get Siding Calculator for iPhone now

Watch a short video of iPhone Siding Calculator:

Here is a demo video of Roofing Calculator app for Android:

Support for future BlackBerry phones and tablets will be almost native and will not require and reprogramming from Android platform. We plan to port this app to Windows Mobile 7 platform as soon as iPhone version is complete. Stay tuned…