Principles of Estimating

Contents
Chapter 1 Estimating from first principles 1
What is estimating?, 1
What do we need to prepare an estimate?, 2
The requirement for practical experience, 3
The contract documents, 5
Sensible tender periods, 11
Preparing prices – the key points, 12
Large jobs, small jobs – bite-sized bites, 14
The different types of cost, 15
The pitfalls to avoid, 19
Chapter 2 Building up the net price 21
Enquiries, 22
Building up the net prices, 23
Sub-contractor attendances, 30
Chapter 3 The site set-up-preliminaries 31
What do these items cost?, 32
Chapter 4 Calculating rates 45
Using the right layout to prepare our estimate, 46
Calculating rates, 47
Chapter 5 The sources of our prices 61
Specific quotations, 62
Schedules of rates, 63
Databases, 67
Dayworks, 72
Guesstimates’, 75
Market forces, 77
Computerized estimating, 78
Chapter 6 Getting the final price-the tender and
other totals 83
Work items, 83
Transferring prices to the bill of quantities, 84
Provisional and prime cost sums, dayworks and
contingencies, 91
Tender total flow chart, 92
Tender considerations, 95
Variations, 96
Additional works, 97
Claims, 97
Summary, 101
Chapter 7 Examples of estimates 103
Chapter 8 Cost, value and budgets 117
Cost, 118
The contractor’s costs, 118
The consultant’s costs, 120
Value, 122
Cash flow, 124
Profit, 125
Budgets, 125
Index 131