← Fireplace insert bid calculator
The number a homeowner wants is a published “$2,499 installed” gas-insert special. That number is not a takeoff. A small gas cassette in an existing masonry firebox with a live stub, no liner, and a one-story stack is not the same job as a large wood insert with a 30-foot stainless liner, a new hearth pad, a surround, and a two-story chimney. The trip is the same. The hours are not.
Open the free bid calculatorChimney-sweep calculators price the flue, creosote, and CSIA height. A fireplace-insert hang is a different job: the unit, the liner, the hearth, and the extras that are not in the coupon. Quoting all of that from a published installed special is how the first seized damper eats the field margin.
Each liner foot is time that never appears on the coupon. A hearth pad, a gas run, a dedicated circuit, a surround, and a damper are billed as their own hours. A two-story stack is an adder that gets forgotten on a brochure special. On the sample rates a large wood insert with a 30-foot liner, a new hearth, a surround, a damper, tear-out, and second-story access prices about $14,882.94 (21.9 crew-hours). The same shop’s small gas brochure hang prices about $4,607.62 (7.0 hours, walk-away $3,133.18). Matching the $2,499 special already loses about $634 on the brochure hang, and it loses about $7,621 on the wood house — the walk-away on the heavy job is already $10,120.40.
A medium pellet insert with a dedicated circuit, a 22-foot liner, and a new hearth is not the gas brochure hang plus 15%. On the sample rates that pellet job prices about $10,721.64 (16.7 crew-hours). A small gas hang with a 16-foot liner and a damper prices about $6,446.51 (10.7 hours). Treating either as a blended add-on is how the special that looked fine turns into a loss after the first seized damper.
A $48/h installer loaded at 34% payroll burden is $64.32. Margin is a share of the price you send, not a markup on cost. The walk-away price is total cost — below that the job makes nothing before you take a dollar home. Replace every rate with your invoices before you send either number.
This is not a fireplace design, a building-code determination, a permit, a WETT or CSIA inspection, an engineering stamp, or a recommended market price. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type. The fuel, the opening, liner footage, hearth, gas, circuit, and finish are yours to confirm. It does not price a chimney sweep or a full chimney rebuild sold as the house.
Price your fireplace-insert hang
Charge from the trip, the set, the liner or rebuild, the hearth, gas, circuit, surround, loaded labor, overhead, and a margin that is a share of price. A default small gas insert in an existing firebox with a live stub, at the sample rates in this calculator, prices around $4,608 — about 7.0 crew-hours.
Homeowners count an insert. Liner footage, a new hearth, a gas run, a dedicated circuit, a surround, and stack height do not scale with that number. Matching a cheaper special written for a small gas hang is how a wood-and-liner job becomes a two-day loss. On the sample rates the $2,499 special already loses about $634 against the $3,133 walk-away on the brochure hang, and it loses about $7,621 on the wood house whose walk-away is already $10,120.
A large wood insert with a 30-foot liner, a new hearth, and a surround is not a small gas special. On the sample rates that job prices around $14,883 (21.9 crew-hours), while a small gas brochure hang prices around $4,608 (7.0 hours).