Calculators
Two quick tools for a decision you are holding right now. They work out a number on the spot; they do not change your records. To act on a real job, report a problem or open your plan.
Repair or replace?
Give a component, its age, and the repair quote you are holding; see whether you are in a repair year or a replacement year, by the annual-cost method.
Is this a repair year or a replacement year?
You give the component, its age, and the repair quote you are holding. You see which costs less per year of service, and how much life a repair can honestly buy at this age. The method is the one property managers run: cost divided by the years it buys, not the size of the two numbers side by side.
Pick a component, its age, and the repair quote to see the year you are in.
The money is one input, not the decision. See the repair-or-replace guide for the third option (waiting, with a date) and the four times the arithmetic gets overruled: safety, energy rules, insurance, and a third failure in a year.
This runs on typical market prices and lifespans, not your own component. Signed in, appkeep runs the same method on your house's real age, cost, and history.
- Lifespans and installed replacement costs are the sourced seed behind appkeep's plan (RgdBOEI 2012 / NEN 2767, NAHB, BRE, CIBSE, trade bodies, manufacturer guidance). Prices are per unit, VAT-inclusive, in today's money. Each carries its own confidence label, shown next to the number.
- A repair does not reset the component's clock. The years a repair buys are capped by the life the component has left, and past roughly three-quarters of its life that shrinks fast, because wear accelerates. The tool reflects that in the years-a-repair-buys figure.
- The tool prices the money. It cannot see the component's condition, whether this is its first fault or its third, or a safety or insurance rule that forces the call. Those sit with you and the linked guide.
Fair mandate ceiling
Work out a defensible price ceiling for a job before you commission it, so a quote has something to be measured against.
You hand the contractor a budget ceiling, in writing, before work begins.
A mandate is the cap a property manager hands a contractor: hours, local trade rate, call-out, materials. They proceed within it. If the cost will exceed it, they stop and explain why in writing before continuing.
Holding a quote already? Enter it below to see whether it lands in the typical range for the job. Or set the ceiling first: the cap you hand the contractor before any work begins.
This is the tool for a repair you need now: something is broken, and sending a mandate commissions the work under your ceiling. Work that can wait puts you in a stronger position — you have time to make contractors compete on more than price. How to compare quotes for planned work
Select a trade and a scope to calculate your mandate.
I have a maintenance issue: [what you see — the symptom, not the solution].
Location: [room / floor / area].
You are authorised up to €0 including VAT to complete this repair. If you expect the cost to exceed that amount, stop and provide a written cost indication and a timeframe for completion before proceeding.
Please confirm availability and expected timeframe.
You're signed in · run this in your fix flow and it files against your house.
Jonas calls an installation company. Repairman arrives: €90 call-out. Thirty minutes assessing: €32.50. €125 on the meter before any repair begins.
| Call-out | €90.00 |
| Diagnostic · 30 min | €32.50 |
| Labour · 3 h × €65 | €195.00 |
| Parts trip · 1 h | €65.00 |
| Materials | €100.00 |
| Total | €482.50 |
The price is decided before the visit, not discovered after it. Jonas hands the contractor the ceiling. They proceed within it; if not, they stop and write.
| Labour · 3 h × €70 | €210.00 |
| Materials · ratio 0.50 | €105.00 |
| Call-out | €55.00 |
| Ceiling | €370.00 |
| ↓ €112.50 saved · 23% | |
Describe the problem, not the solution. You write "find and address the cause of the leak", not "stop the leak". The contractor's expertise is the diagnosis; your mandate is the budget.
- Hourly rates above are EU averages for the trade. Adjust to your local market — Dutch and German rates run higher than Iberian and Eastern European.
- Materials ratio varies by trade. The calculator applies each trade's figure (plumbing 0.80, electrical 0.50, painting 0.35, roofing 1.0), and they lean generous because the mandate is a ceiling that should cover most jobs. The representative example above uses the general 0.50 default.
- Swedish rates show in kronor. We hold sourced ranges for plumbing (900–1,400 kr/h incl. moms, Stockholm) and electrician (650–1,050 kr/h incl. moms); for other trades, enter the rate from a quote or the trade body's published range — the calculator will not invent one.