What's New in the 2007 Report?

Four new projects were added to the 2007 report.

Deck Addition – wood.

Although previous reports specified composite decking, pressure-treated wood decking accounts for most decks built in the U.S. With this in mind we created a midrange project that is identical to the upscale composite project except for the pressure-treated decking. Be careful, however, when making comparisons to previous years. The composite project was called “midrange” in past years, not because of the material used but because of the simple shape and small size of the deck we described. Although the deck size and shape are the same in both projects, the composite deck addition is labeled "upscale" this year due to the higher price and superior durability of the composite decking.

Back-Up Power Generator.

The addition of this project acknowledges a trend following several seasons of extreme weather in many parts of the country. This project is at the lower end of the spectrum, providing roughly 7kW of back-up power to a few essential circuits (heat, water, refrigerator) rather than to the entire house.

Garage Addition - Mid-range/Upscale.

Two versions of a detached garage are included in this year’s report. The upscale version includes floor, wall, and ceiling finishes, plus trim and a customized garage storage system.

Trend Graph

Also new this year is a graphic representation of the overall year-over-year trend in share of cost recovered. This required calculating a single percentage to represent the “value” of all projects for each year included in the series. To get this number, we divided total job costs into the total cost recovered. But because the number of projects included in the report varies year to year, we made this calculation in two ways. The pink line in the graph below displays the results when only projects that have appeared every year are included in the total. The blue line, on the other hand, shows the result when all of year’s projects are totaled whether or not those projects appeared n a previous year. Going forward, we plan to survey all projects every year, so the method of calculating this trend data will gravitate toward the latter method over time.