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6 articles · updated as we learn something

Estimating notes

Not thought leadership. These are the notes we keep for ourselves: the tables we reach for, the mistakes we keep finding in other people's work, and the arithmetic behind decisions contractors make every week.

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A technician working on boiler-room pipework
Latest · Reference

Waste factors by material: the numbers we actually use, and why they move

A flat 10% across the sheet is the most common shortcut in estimating and one of the most expensive. Here is the table we work from, with the site conditions that move each figure.

9 min read

Read the article
Everything else

The rest of the desk notes.

Each one is written for somebody who already estimates for a living, so nothing here starts by explaining what a takeoff is.

Roofers working together on a standing-seam roofTakeoff

Nine takeoff mistakes

None of these are exotic. They are the ordinary errors we find when a contractor asks us to check a takeoff that already feels wrong, ordered roughly by how much they cost.

10 min read
A colourful apartment block facadeEstimating

Labour: hours, not lump rates

A composite rate hides the two things you most need to change: how long the work takes and what an hour costs. Splitting them takes an afternoon and pays for itself the first time wages move.

8 min read
A suburban house exterior with garage and front lawnEstimating

Reading an estimate you did not write

A twelve-hundred-line workbook lands in your inbox two days before the bid. You have about forty minutes. Here is the order to read it in.

8 min read
Reinforcement and formwork laid out across an open siteTrades

Swell, shrink and earthwork volumes

Cut equals fill on the drawing and never on site. The reason is that soil occupies three different volumes depending on where it is, and most earthwork estimates only track one of them.

9 min read
A modern apartment building elevationRunning a bid room

What a bid actually costs

Estimating feels free because it is salaried. It is not free, and once you put a number on a bid the question of which jobs to chase starts to answer itself.

8 min read
By topic

What we write about, and what we do not.

Five headings. If a subject does not change how somebody prices a job, it does not get an article.

1 article

Takeoff

Measuring off drawings, and the places measurement goes wrong.

2 articles

Estimating

Turning quantities into a number somebody has to stand behind.

1 article

Reference

Tables and figures we use often enough to keep written down.

1 article

Trades

Division by division, what the drawings do and do not tell you.

1 article

Running a bid room

The commercial side: capacity, hit rate, what a bid costs.

Reading about it is slower than sending us the drawings.

Send a plan set and a scope. You get a fixed fee and a delivery date back, usually the same working day, before anybody starts measuring.

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Fixed fee quoted before we start · US and UK · Mon to Fri, 9:00 to 18:00 EST