AI for your roofing or carpentry business: more time on the roof, less office work after hours. We build AI for quoting, site work and the office.
Customer photos by email, measurements on a scrap of paper, the cutting list for the timber merchant, dozens of calls the morning after a storm, the contractor’s declaration once the insulation is in: in many roofing and carpentry businesses, the owner runs the office as well.
Roofing and carpentryOverview Page 1 of 4
AI Værk is your 360° partner for AI in mid-sized companies.
You work directly with us, the two founders, from the first question through to live operation. Together we pin down where AI can take work off your hands, and then we implement it.
We know the day-to-day work in roofing and carpentry businesses: measuring and billing under VOB/C, the German rules for measuring construction work, storm damage from the first call to the estimate for the insurer, and cutting lists for the roof timbers. We also know what holds things up everywhere: re-keying data from one system into another, or waiting for the one person who knows the answer.
You can start wherever you are: with an early idea, a workflow that takes too long, or a finished plan for us to implement.
Justus August and Elias Arndt
About us-
01
Consulting and AI audit
In a free initial call of about 30 minutes, we listen. In the €500 AI audit, we review your workflows, data and software, then agree with you where to start.
Pricing and AI audit -
02
Workshops and training
Your team practises on real tasks from their own day-to-day work and learns to use AI tools safely and check the results.
Workshops -
03
AI assistants and chatbots
Your team or your customers ask, your company knowledge answers: with sources, and only with what the person asking is allowed to see.
Internal AI assistants -
04
Process automation
Recurring workflows run on their own from intake to result, connected to the software you already use.
Process automation -
05
Custom development
We build custom software where off-the-shelf products fall short, for example a portal where property managers see the flat roofs they look after, with inspection reports, photos and outstanding repairs.
Custom development -
06
Operations and maintenance
We host, monitor and maintain the software and extend it when your workflows change.
Operations and monitoring
Where AI saves your business time
Enquiries with customer photos
Customers send photos of their roof by email or through your contact form, often without an address and without a photo of the whole roof. The software asks the customer for both, creates the enquiry with all the photos and passes it to the owner to arrange a site visit.
Quotes from the survey
Whether you survey by laser, app or drone, the software turns the measurements into line items, using your own item descriptions. It works out the quantities under the VOB/C measurement rules, for example DIN 18338 for roof covering work and DIN 18334 for carpentry, and flags what is still missing, such as the extra clips the wind uplift fixing specification calls for in edge and corner zones. You set the prices.
From cutting list to delivery
From the cutting list in your timber CAD software, the software drafts the enquiry to the timber merchant or a CNC cutting service and compares the quotes. You approve the order. When the timber arrives, it checks the delivery note against the order and flags any section sizes, lengths or strength classes that differ, and any missing pieces.
Use case
From the storm to the estimate
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01
The morning after
After a night of gales, thirty customers get in touch by phone and email before noon. From the emails and the notes your office takes on the phone, the software opens a job for each address. “Water coming through the bedroom ceiling” goes to the top, “tiles in the garden” further down. The software suggests a route for the emergency make-safe visits, and your office confirms it.
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02
A make-safe with a damage record
Your roofer covers the open verge with a tarpaulin and records a voice note: “West verge open for three metres, fifteen tiles slipped, battens intact.” The software turns it into a daywork sheet and a damage record with the time, photos and the peak gusts recorded that night at the nearest German Weather Service (DWD) station. Insurers use these to check whether the wind reached force 8, the usual threshold for storm cover in Germany.
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03
An estimate for the insurer
From the damage record and photos, the software drafts the line items using your item descriptions. The owner checks quantities and prices and sends the estimate, damage record and photos to the homeowner. Whether the damage is covered is for the insurer to decide.
Connected to your software
Through the API of Craftnote, the site app, our software creates projects and attaches records and photos. In the trade software HERO it creates projects and writes records to the project log, and in PlanRadar, the defect and site documentation platform, it creates tickets with photos. Estimating and invoicing stay in your trade software, whether that is HERO or another program. If it can import GAEB files, the German exchange format for bills of quantities, the draft quote goes in as a file. Otherwise your team copies it across from a list of line items.
Product names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. Mentioning them implies no partnership with the vendors and no endorsement by them.
You decide where customer data and pricing are kept.
Your prices are a trade secret, and photos of houses and your customers’ addresses are personal data. You decide where the software runs, and we set it up that way.
- A data processing agreement under the GDPR, signed before the software sees real data.
- Your customer data and your pricing are never used to train AI models.
- Every access is logged. You see who opened what, and when.
Working safely with AI: training for office and site
Your team practises on an email that arrives in the middle of a job: what does the software handle, what does the AI see of it, and what does the owner decide? The toggle shows how customer data stays protected.
“Hello, we’ve had a rethink: we’d now like clay tiles in anthracite instead of the concrete tiles, and an extra roof window in the children’s bedroom. Is the scaffolding still going up on the 12th? Kind regards, Person 4418Sabine Krüger, Address 2093Lindenweg 7, Husum”
- Your server inserts placeholders
- Sent encrypted
- The cloud AI processes it
- Your server puts the names back
Only your server knows which placeholder belongs to which person.
- The message arrives
- The AI on your server processes all of it
Nothing leaves your business.
Price the change
Draft a variation for clay tiles in place of the concrete tiles and, before anything is ordered, check the roof pitch against the new tile’s minimum pitch and reset the batten spacing to its gauge.
Sort out the roof window
Draft a variation for the extra roof window. The owner decides on site whether it fits between the rafters or needs a trimmer.
Check the date
Whether the scaffolding can still go up on the 12th depends on lead times for the clay tiles and the roof window. The owner checks with the merchant, moves the scaffolder if needed and lets the customer know.
Questions before getting started
Does the AI price our quotes?
No. You set prices and mark-ups yourself. The software shows you what you quoted recently for similar roofs, and you send the quote from your trade software.
Does AI help with notices of concerns and variations?
Yes. If stripping the roof reveals rotten boarding, photos and a voice note from the roof are enough. From those, the software drafts the variation item and the written notice of concerns, citing § 4(3) VOB/B where the contract is on VOB terms, the German standard conditions for building work. The owner checks both and sends them before your team carries on. The customer then decides whether to go ahead with the variation.
And the contractor’s declaration after insulation work?
The software fills in this declaration under German building energy law from the delivery note, the product data sheet and the measurements: insulation material, thickness, thermal conductivity, area and the U-value from your calculation. If the homeowner applied in advance for the BAFA grant, Germany’s federal funding for energy-efficient renovation, it puts together photos and documents for the energy efficiency expert’s sign-off. If they claim the tax relief under § 35c of the German Income Tax Act instead, it prepares the contractor’s certificate. You check and sign.
Does the software write to our timber CAD?
No. It reads the cutting list from an export and works with merchants’ quotes and delivery notes. If a customer wants a different eaves overhang, the software creates a task with the new dimension. Whoever does your drawings then makes the change in the CAD.
Does AI help when the weather turns?
Yes. If rain or high winds are forecast for tomorrow, the software suggests which crew moves to which job and drafts the message to the customers whose appointments move. The owner decides who goes where.
What does getting started cost?
The initial call is free. If the task is already clear, we move straight to a proposal. If a closer assessment is needed, the AI audit costs €500, fully credited towards implementation with AI Værk. If we find no useful AI application, the audit fee is waived; previously agreed expenses remain payable. Our proposal lists setup, licences, hosting and support separately.
How many evenings a month do you spend on measurements and quotes?
In the free initial call, tell us how a job runs from the first enquiry to the final invoice. We will show you where AI saves time, what that costs and how it connects to your software.