Estimating a Project

Estimating

There are many times throughout a project when it is necessary to perform an estimate or take-off. The first time will typically be completed before a bid or offer is made. Estimators for a company must quantify the costs involved with the project they are working on.

An estimate comprises of all the costs involved to complete the work. What sort of manpower is required? Will you need equipment like boom lifts, backhoes, bobcats or compactors? Are there more material costs involved than meets the eye? What about overhead and profit?

You also have to understand when time is critical that the example below (a detailed breakout) won’t happen. For example, when a subcontractor has three weeks to bid a project, they will quantify the scope, make assumptions on productivity (competitive assumptions), and produce a quick estimate.

What about when the owner is mulling an option to change the roof type? These decisions don’t have time to wait, so an estimator must use his best judgement, based on experience, to provide a quick ROM (rough order of magnitude) to provide a quick idea of how the change would impact the current budget.

Estimating Examples

Remember the example mentioned on the take-off page? Here’s what the next step towards creating an estimate might look like:

Example of a Detailed, Break-out Estimate

Example of a ROM

The Trifecta

As you can see, there is an important relationship between Bidding, Estimating and Scheduling a project. As shown above in the breakout for Labor costs, in order to estimate those costs, you must first understand how long it will take to complete each portion of the work. In order to bid a project, you must understand how much a project will cost and how long it will take to complete.

What if you’re an owner or general contractor and you’d like to evaluate a change order?? There are some important items that should be consistent with every change order, regardless of the trade being priced. Look at the Evaluating Change Orders? section to see evaluation tactics for review of change orders.

To review sample problems visit the Practice Questions? page. This also includes a broad range of construction-related questions that apply to the PE Exam.