PressureWashingBossPro Blog — Quotes & Estimates

Measuring Driveways, Roofs and Fences From Satellite for a Pressure Washing Estimate

The old way to quote a driveway was to drive out, walk it with a measuring wheel, write the number on a pad and drive home. That is an hour or more for a job that might bring in a couple hundred dollars. Measuring from the satellite view gets the same number from your desk in a minute or two, while the customer is still on the phone.

Why Measurements Matter

The rates you apply to these numbers are covered in Pricing Pressure Washing by the Square Foot: How Operators Set Their Rates. A good rate on a bad measurement is still a bad quote.

Underestimate a driveway and you either eat the difference or have an awkward talk on site. Overestimate it and the customer gets a higher number than the house down the street and books someone else. Accurate measurements are the cheapest way to make every square-foot price fair.

How Satellite Measuring Works

In PressureWashingBossPro, every property has a map. Switch to the satellite view and you can measure two ways:

• Square feet — click around the edge of a surface to outline it, like a driveway, a patio, a pool deck or a roof plane. The area is calculated for you.
• Linear feet — click along a line, like a fence, a run of gutters or a long sidewalk. The length is calculated for you.

The measurements stay with the property, and estimates can price off them. That means the square-foot rate on your Driveway & Walks service multiplies against the area you traced, and the line comes out priced.

Measuring Each Surface

Driveways and walks. Trace the concrete, not the lawn edge. Include the apron to the street if you clean it, and the front walk to the door. Leave out areas you do not plan to clean, like a gravel strip or a section under a parked boat.

Patios and pool decks. These are often partly hidden under umbrellas, pergolas or tree shade. Trace what you can see and add a note if part of it is covered. A quick question to the customer (“Does the patio go under the pergola?”) fills the gap.

Roofs. Satellite shows the footprint of the roof from straight above, which is a fair starting point. Steeper roofs have more surface than their footprint shows, so many operators adjust for pitch with a note or a separate line. Write down anything you can see from above, like moss on the north side or a second-story section over the garage.

Fences. Click along the fence line for linear feet. Note whether you are cleaning one side or both, and what it is made of. Trees often hide parts of a fence, so ask the customer how far the back section runs.

What Satellite Can't Tell You

Satellite measuring is quick, but it has limits worth knowing:

• Image age. The picture may be older than a new patio or an extended driveway.
• Tree cover. Canopy hides fences, back patios and parts of roofs.
• Pitch and height. You see the roof from above, not its slope.
• Condition. You cannot judge oil stains, rust or how far mildew has gone from a satellite photo.

A simple fix for most of these is asking the customer for a couple of phone photos. Between your measurement and their photos, you can quote most residential work with confidence. Bigger or trickier jobs might still deserve a visit; the next guide covers how to decide.

Measure Once, Quote for Years

Because measurements stay with the property, the second quote is faster than the first. When last year's house wash customer asks about the driveway this year, the area is already there. When a commercial client adds a second location, you trace that one and keep both on the same client. And if you bring customers in through CSV import, their addresses are placed on the map automatically, ready to measure.

It also helps on slow days. Some owners spend a rainy afternoon measuring the driveways and patios of their house wash customers, so that when they send the spring reminder they can include a driveway price too. A customer who sees a real number for the driveway, not “ask us about driveways,” is much more likely to add it.

From Measurement to Estimate

Once the surfaces are traced, building the estimate is mostly picking lines from your service list. The measured area prices the square-foot lines, and you add the house wash, the add-ons and the access notes. Every detail goes onto the estimate and later onto the job, as explained in Job Details on the Estimate: Surfaces, Square Feet and Access Notes That Carry Onto the Job. To see how measuring fits with the rest of quoting, visit the PressureWashingBossPro pressure washing estimate software page.