← Crawl space encapsulation bid calculator
Waterproofing contractors get shopped on a published $4 / sq ft encapsulation Facebook special. Those numbers cannot see the liner or the access. A dry 36-inch ranch with 6-mil liner-only is a different job from an 18-inch wet belly crawl with 20-mil wall liner, a commercial dehumidifier, a dedicated circuit, and a debris clean-out.
Open the free crawl space encapsulation bid calculatorEncapsulation is a dirt floor, then a scope, then how you reach it. Length times width is the floor. Stem-wall area is the perimeter times height. Liner-only is a dirt cover. A sealed encapsulate adds wall liner and a taped rim. Encapsulate-plus-dehumidifier adds the machine. A hatch is walkable. An 18-inch belly crawl is slower. Standing water is a pump-out.
The cheap special is almost always 6-mil on a dry, walkable ranch, no wall liner, no dehumidifier. A sealed encapsulate is a different crew day. Matching a liner-only per-foot number on a wet encapsulate-and-dehumidifier job is how a sold crawl becomes a two-day loss after the first pump-out.
Basement waterproofing is an interior perimeter drain in a finished basement, plus window wells and a sump pit. A French drain is a yard trench. A sump-pump swap is a pit and a discharge. Radon is SSD pipes. Foundation repair is piers as the job. This prices the dirt crawl: liner, access, and extras. Support piers and a dedicated circuit here are line items on an encapsulate, not those other jobs.
Load the wage with payroll burden. Add overhead as a share of direct cost. Then take margin as a share of the customer’s price, not a markup on cost. The walk-away number is total cost. A proposed price under that number loses money before you take anything out of it.
This page is a walkthrough of the arithmetic in the crawl space encapsulation bid calculator. It is not a waterproofing specification, an engineered stamp, a radon or mold clearance, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
Charge from dirt-floor area, scope, access, and extras — not a published $4 / sq ft special. A dry 36-inch ranch with 6-mil liner-only is a different job from an 18-inch wet belly crawl with 20-mil wall liner, a commercial dehumidifier, a dedicated circuit, and a debris clean-out.
No. Liner-only is a dirt cover. A sealed encapsulate adds wall liner, a taped rim, and usually insulation. Encapsulate-plus-dehumidifier adds the machine and a drain. Matching a liner-only special on a sealed job is how a sold crawl becomes a two-day loss after the first dehumidifier ticket.
A walkable hatch is a different crew day from an 18-inch belly crawl. Standing water is a pump-out plus mud. The access does not live in a published per-foot dump.
No. Basement waterproofing is an interior perimeter drain in a finished basement, plus window wells and a sump pit. Encapsulation is a dirt crawl: liner, access, and extras. A French drain is a yard trench. A sump-pump swap is a pit and a discharge.