Using this site

The Cost Desk at thecostdesk.com is run under the trading name TheCostDesk, which is not a registered company, from Andhra Pradesh, India. By using the site you agree to these terms and to the privacy policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the site. The site is meant for adults; a young person should use it with a parent or guardian.

Estimates and calculator results are planning ranges and arithmetic worked from published data and the assumptions listed on each page. They are not quotes, appraisals, bids, offers, inspections or promises. Real prices depend on your home, your town, wages, material costs, the season, local demand and the contractor, and a real quote can fall outside any range shown. The figures are US averages unless a page says otherwise.

Where a figure is a guess, the page marks it as an estimate. Prices are read on a stated day and change often.

Nothing on the site is tax, legal, financial, investment, insurance, accounting, engineering, electrical, plumbing, structural or construction advice, and nothing is a recommendation to take or refuse a loan, a product, a contractor or a course of action. The site does not match you with contractors, lenders or anyone else, and does not check, endorse or guarantee any.

The figures are not a substitute for written quotes or for the work of a licensed professional. Building codes, permits, inspections and safe practice are set by the local building authority and carried out by licensed professionals, not by this site. A calculator that works a size, quantity or load from published rules is an arithmetic check; it is not a design and does not show that anything meets code. Rules, rates and prices change, and your situation may differ from the examples.

We work to keep data current and show dates and sources, but our sources can lag behind the real world and so can we. We do not guarantee that any figure, source, formula or page is complete, correct or up to date. The site is provided "as is" and "as available," and we may change it, pause it or take it down at any time without notice. If you find an error, please tell us; we look into each report and list what we change.

You may use the site for your own personal, non-commercial planning. Please do not use it to break the law, to harm or overload the site, to try to get around its security, to scrape it in bulk, or to pass off our content as your own. We may block access to anyone who does.

The text, design, formulas and arrangement of the site belong to TheCostDesk. You may link to any page and quote short extracts with credit and a link back to the page. Whole pages, our estimators and calculators, and our tables may not be copied, republished, framed or offered as your own, and our content may not be used to build, train or run artificial intelligence or machine learning systems without our written permission.

The data we cite belongs to its publishers and stays under their terms; the sources are listed on each page. For example, the REMDB database from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and used here as a cross-check with our own arithmetic. Product names and prices belong to the retailers and makers named and are shown only to say what a price was on a stated day.

If you believe a page copies something you own, write to [email protected] with the subject "Copyright notice" and tell us: what the work is and where it appears (the page address), how to reach you, that you believe in good faith the use is not allowed, that your notice is accurate, and your name as a signature. We look into each notice, may take the material down while we do, and will tell you what we decide. A false notice can have legal consequences for whoever sends it.

Links to other sites are for reference. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for them. The site shows no ads, and no one pays for a place in an estimate or a calculator. We have no affiliate links. If that changes, the pages will say so next to the link, and these terms will change first.

To the extent the law allows, the site and everything on it are provided without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose or that the site will run without interruption or error. You use the site at your own risk and decide for yourself what to do with what you read.

To the extent the law allows, TheCostDesk is not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for loss of money, profit, data or opportunity, that results from using the site or relying on its figures, even if we were told it might happen. Because the site is free, our total liability for all claims relating to it is limited to US$100. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, such as for fraud, and nothing takes away consumer rights that cannot be waived where you live.

These terms are governed by the laws of India. The courts of Andhra Pradesh, India have jurisdiction over disputes about the site, subject to any consumer rights you have under the law where you live that cannot be waived. Before starting a formal dispute, please write to us at [email protected] so we can try to settle it.

We may change these terms. The new version is posted here with its date and applies from then; continuing to use the site afterward means you accept it. If part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force, and our not enforcing a right at once does not mean we give it up. These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the site.

Questions: [email protected]. Version 1.0, last updated: November 5, 2026. This is the first version; earlier versions, if there are any, will be listed here.