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Use the Cost Bridge Table

The Cost Bridge Table is a section of the LCC tab that prices the proposed improvements. It matches the equipment in a proposed model against a reviewed cost catalog and adds up the incremental cost, which you can then send to the lifecycle cost calculation.

Who can use it

The Cost Bridge Table is gated by the Can edit costs permission:

  • Staff always see and edit it.
  • External reviewers see it only when staff turn on their per-viewer Can edit costs toggle. Without that toggle, a reviewer never sees the section.

Editing the global cost catalog itself (the seeded cost rows) stays staff-only and happens in the Django admin. The controls described here change the selections for this analysis only.

Choose the proposed slot

The table prices one proposed model at a time. Select which proposed slot you are pricing. The table walks that model's equipment and fills in a quantity for each row it can match.

Pick a cost source

Each row gets a unit cost from a source. You set one source for the whole analysis, then optionally override individual rows:

  • Source for the analysis — choose MEEA or Tony as the cost source for the whole table.
  • Per-row source override — change a single row to Default (use the analysis-level source), MEEA, or Tony when one source fits that item better.
  • Per-row custom unit cost — type a reviewer-entered cost for a single row. A custom cost wins over both a per-row source override and the analysis-level source. Setting a row's source back to Default, MEEA, or Tony clears its custom cost.

Equipment and other cost toggles

Some costs are not detected from the model automatically — you turn them on per slot with toggle buttons. There is a static Instructions for Equipment Cost Buttons table above the toggles that maps each button to the model type it applies to. The toggles cover:

  • Equipment (such as a gas furnace),
  • Water heating (such as a gas tankless or heat-pump water heater),
  • Ventilation,
  • Lighting,
  • Thermostat,
  • Duct sealing,
  • Energy-efficient appliances, and
  • The ERI (Energy Rating Index) pathway fee.

Pick the water heater and other equipment with these toggles rather than expecting the table to guess them. A couple of rows are computed when you toggle them — for example, hot-water pipe insulation from the model's hot-water pipe length, and duct sealing from the proposed model's tested duct surface area.

Hide unmatched rows

A per-session Hide unmatched rows toggle collapses rows that have no quantity, so external reviewers see a shorter table. It is purely visual — totals never change, and it never hides the appliances or ERI-fee rows, which are controlled by their own toggles.

Apply the totals to the LCC tab

Two buttons move the table's results into the lifecycle cost inputs:

  • Apply to Net Measure Cost copies the table's incremental cost into the LCC tab's Net Measure Cost field.
  • Apply to LCC Replacement Cost copies the subtotal of the rows flagged as replacement costs (such as the gas furnace, gas tankless water heater, heat-pump water heater, and energy-efficient appliances) into the Replacement Cost field. When that subtotal is positive and the first replacement year is still blank, the action fills it in with a default of 15 years. It never overwrites a value you already entered.

Because both totals respond to the equipment toggles, turning a replacement-flagged equipment button on or off updates both the Net Measure Cost and the replacement subtotal.

Next step

After applying the costs, recalculate on the LCC tab and review the Results Dashboard.