BlockSun
Contractors price a whole street more cheaply than a single house — one mobilization, one permit run, no door-knocking between jobs. BlockSun maps your block, sizes each project to each real roof and lot, and unlocks tiered discounts as more neighbors join: the price drops for everyone as the group grows. Browsing is free and takes no signup.
Prefer to start with your own house? Open your home's improvement plan — every project ranked with cost, savings and financing.
The price on a home improvement quote is not mostly materials. A meaningful share of it is the cost of winning and reaching you: marketing, sales visits, estimating, and moving crews, equipment and dumpsters to a site for a single job. Those costs barely change when the same crew does four houses on one street instead of one.
Group pricing simply returns that saving to the neighbors who created it, instead of leaving it with whoever knocked on the most doors.
The group only works if the block knows about it, and a neighbor hears it better from you than from us. What tends to work: share your own home's plan rather than a generic link — people are curious about their own house and yours makes the idea concrete. Post it once in the street's group chat, Nextdoor or the HOA newsletter with the specific number rather than a pitch. And say plainly that joining costs nothing and commits to nothing, because that is the objection everyone has.
Group pricing is worth having, but it is not a substitute for diligence. Whatever the discount, check that the contractor is licensed and insured in your state and that the licence is active; get the scope in writing including what happens if they find damage once work starts; understand which parts of the warranty are the manufacturer's and which are the contractor's own workmanship; and never pay a large deposit up front. A good price on bad work is not a saving.
| Project | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Solar | Installed cost runs about $3.05 per watt — roughly $12,000–$27,500 for the 4–9 kW system most homes need. |
| New roof | Installed cost runs about $3.50–$30.00 per square foot depending on the material. |
| Pool | Most projects run $45,000–$85,000. |
| HVAC | Most projects run $8,000–$18,000. |
| Battery | Most projects run $12,000–$22,000. |
| Windows | Most projects run $9,000–$22,000. |
| Turf | Typically about $12.00 per square foot installed. |
| Fencing | Typically about $45 per linear foot installed. |
Ranges are regional planning figures. Your home's number depends on its roof area, lot size, age and existing equipment — which is exactly what the plan works out for you.
A rooftop solar system converts daylight into electricity your home uses first, exporting whatever is left over to the grid. In California the economics changed materially under NEM 3.0: power you use as it is generated is worth the full retail rate you would otherwise pay, while power you export earns roughly a sixth of that. That single fact should drive how big a system you buy and whether you add a battery.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: Typically 2–4 months from signing to switch-on, most of it permitting and utility interconnection rather than installation, which is usually 1–3 days on the roof.
The part nobody volunteers: A bigger system is not automatically a better one. Under NEM 3.0 an array sized to fill your roof rather than to match your usage sells its surplus at a fraction of what it is worth to you. If a proposal is much larger than your consumption, ask why.
A re-roof strips the existing covering, repairs or replaces damaged sheathing, and installs new underlayment and roofing material. It is the project most likely to be genuinely urgent, because a roof that fails takes the ceilings, insulation and sometimes the framing with it — and it is the project where deferring costs the most.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: Most single-family re-roofs run 2–5 days on site, with a few weeks' lead time for permits and material.
The part nobody volunteers: Get the sheathing contingency in writing before work starts. The most common way a roofing quote grows is a mid-job discovery with no agreed price attached to it.
A new in-ground pool is excavation, structure, plumbing, electrical, decking and equipment — closer to a small construction project than to an appliance purchase. It is a lifestyle decision, and it carries ongoing cost that the build price does not show.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: Commonly 2–4 months from breaking ground to swimming, longer on difficult sites or during permit backlogs.
The part nobody volunteers: Budget for the second number. Running a pool typically costs $1,500–$4,000 a year before any repairs, and resurfacing comes due every 10–15 years. Ask any builder to put the ongoing cost in writing next to the build price.
Replacing heating and cooling means a new condenser and air handler — or, increasingly, a heat pump that does both — usually with duct repairs and a new thermostat. Sizing is the part that matters most and the part most often got wrong.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: A straight equipment swap is usually 1–2 days; adding or reworking ducts extends it to 3–5.
The part nobody volunteers: Oversized equipment is a real and common failure. A unit that is too large cools quickly, shuts off before it has removed humidity, and short-cycles itself to an early death. If a contractor sizes by square footage alone rather than a load calculation, keep looking.
A home battery stores energy — from your solar array or from cheap off-peak grid power — and discharges it when power is expensive or unavailable. Under NEM 3.0 it is what turns a solar array from an export business into a self-consumption one, which is where the value is.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: Usually 1–2 days on site once permits are issued; permitting and utility approval typically add 4–10 weeks.
The part nobody volunteers: Backup and bill savings are two different products. A battery sized to shave your evening peak may not carry your house through a long outage, and one sized for outages is often poor value if you never lose power. Decide which you are buying before comparing quotes.
Window replacement swaps single-pane or failed double-pane units for modern insulated glass. It is usually a comfort, noise and condensation project first and an energy project second — the payback on energy alone is long, and honest sellers say so.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: Manufacturing lead time is usually 4–8 weeks; installation of a whole house is typically 2–4 days.
The part nobody volunteers: Be skeptical of energy-savings claims used to justify the price. Windows are worth doing for comfort, noise, light and how the house works to live in. If the pitch is built entirely on utility savings, the math rarely survives contact with your actual bill.
Artificial turf replaces lawn with a synthetic surface over a compacted, draining base. In a drought-prone climate it removes irrigation and mowing entirely; the trade-off is a significant up-front cost and a surface that runs hotter than grass in direct sun.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: Most residential installs are 2–5 days depending on area and how much demolition is needed.
The part nobody volunteers: Convert the space you use, not the space you have. Turf is priced by the square foot, so the difference between covering a whole lot and covering the lawn you actually walk on is the difference between a sensible project and an eye-watering one.
New fencing replaces or adds a boundary structure — posts set in concrete, a frame, and the infill material. Most of the cost is in linear feet and post depth, and most of the disputes are about where the line actually runs.
Signs it is time:
What moves the price on your home:
Questions worth asking a contractor:
How long it takes: A typical residential run is 2–4 days, plus post-concrete cure time before gates are hung.
The part nobody volunteers: Settle the boundary before anyone digs. A fence built even slightly over the line is the single most expensive mistake in this category, because the remedy is taking it down again. In many places the neighbor shares the cost of a boundary fence if you agree in advance.
Coverage today is the Los Angeles South Bay and Palos Verdes Peninsula: Rancho Palos Verdes, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills Estates, San Pedro, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Lomita and Harbor City.
Homeowners never pay us. When you ask for a quote, that introduction is what we sell to the provider — which is the whole reason the plan can be free and the reason we say so plainly here. It also sets a limit we hold to: a provider cannot pay to change your home's ranking or its numbers, because the ranking is computed from the property. If we told you to replace a roof that did not need replacing, the estimate would be worth nothing to you and the lead would be worth nothing to them.
Yes. Looking up any home, seeing its full ranked plan, and comparing costs and savings is free and needs no signup. You only share contact details when you ask for a quote, and that request goes to vetted local providers.
A contractor doing several homes on one street shares mobilization, permitting and travel across all of them, and skips the cost of finding each customer. BlockSun aggregates that demand and passes the saving back as tiered discounts that deepen as more neighbors join.
Cost is derived from each home's own measured geometry — roof footprint, lot area, perimeter — combined with current regional pricing per square foot or a project cost band. Savings use current local utility rates. They are planning estimates, not bids; a licensed local contractor confirms the real figure for free.
No. Nothing is shared until you explicitly request a quote, and then only with providers who can do the specific project you picked.
Solar, a new roof, HVAC, windows, battery storage, pools, artificial turf and fencing — each scored against the individual home rather than offered as a blanket pitch.
Getting a second opinion is sensible before spending five figures on your home. These open an assistant with the question already written:
ChatGPT · Claude · Perplexity · Google AI Mode
BlockSun is free for homeowners. Figures are estimates for planning, not offers of credit or a contractor's bid.