Certainly any reputable residential construction
contractor should be able to provide their clients with an
estimate that will not leave them gasping for breath. In
most construction companies involved in the residential
field they will employ a person who is specifically there to
carry out residential construction estimating for them.
In order for these people to prepare a detailed estimate for
the company's client they must be provided with the
following information.
1. Plans as well as section drawings of the property that is
to be constructed along with details of other relevant works
which will be undertaken during the project. It is vital
that the plans provided to the estimator are clear in order
that they may accurately estimate the various quantities of
materials etc, that are required.
2. All the necessary specifications relating to the exact
nature and quality (class) of materials that the contractor
and the client want used.
3. All the various rates for the different items of work
which will be carried including those for the laborers who
are employed in specialized roles such as plumbers,
electricians, plasterers etc.
Once this information as been provided to the estimator so
he can start preparing the residential construction estimate
for the client the following steps need to be taken.
1. First, all the measurements and quantities shown on the
plans are entered on to a measurement sheet or dimension
paper. So when it comes to the brickwork for the external
parts of the property this would be written down as cubic
meters whilst the plastering of the actual walls inside or
out will be calculated as square meters.
2. The next step known as squaring out is where they will
work out the volumes, areas of the work to be carried out.
3. Whilst during the third step they will be dealing with
abstracting which is a net result of the figures which have
been obtained during the step before and then transferred to
another sheet which has rate columns on it ready for the
pricing to be included.
These final 2 steps are known as working up and all the
calculations as well as the numbers transferred from the
sheet in step 2 to the sheet in step 3 need to be checked by
another person. By doing this they are able to ensure that
the residential construction estimating costs provided have
no mathematical or copy errors within them.
