How It Works: Drawings In, Bid-Ready Package Out
You send a drawing set and a bid date. An estimator reads it, scopes it, and sends back one fixed price with a delivery date attached. You approve that in writing or you walk away, and either way it has cost you nothing. Only after approval does anybody measure a line.
The construction estimating process in four stages, and who is holding the job at each one
Here is how construction estimating works on this desk. Two of the four stages need something from you, and two do not.
You send the set and name a date
We read it and send one fixed price
You approve in writing, then production runs
Two checks, then the package lands
What we need from you, in the order it matters
The first four lines below change the answer you get back. Send what exists today instead of waiting for a folder that is finally complete.
When part of the set is not in the folder
Almost nothing arrives complete, and neither case below stops a job.
There is no spec book, only drawings.
The job runs. Quantities come off the drawings either way, because drawings govern geometry. What you lose is the assembly detail: fire ratings, finish levels, acceptable substitutions. Those move to the scope record as stated assumptions instead of priced facts, and the list of them gets shorter the moment you send the sections.
The set is a scan of a printed roll.
Workable, with one caveat. A scan measures fine once a known dimension on the sheet confirms the scale. What a scan cannot give is searchable text, so sheet indexing and schedule reading happen by eye and take longer. That shows up in the quote as hours, and it is named there rather than buried.
Send one set and find out what the number is
Back comes one fixed price, a written inclusions and exclusions list, and a delivery date.
Start at your bid date and work backwards
Every date on a bid hangs off one fixed point: the hour the owner stops accepting submissions. Fix that and the rest of the calendar falls out of it.
What happens between approval and the file leaving
Production is not one long act of measuring. It is up to six numbered passes over the same set in a fixed order, plus the scope record that gets written while they run.
Day one: reading the set before measuring any of it
Sheet index and triage
PASS 1Every sheet is listed, classified and marked in scope, out of scope or reference only.
Scale verification, sheet by sheet
PASS 2Each sheet is calibrated against a dimension the drawing itself prints.
Scope boundary written down
PASS 3Before any measuring starts, the edge of what was ordered is written out in the same words that will appear on the delivered scope record.
Days two to four: measuring, reconciling, pricing
Measured by condition
PASS 4Wall types, door marks, finish levels, pipe sizes and assemblies stay separated all the way into the workbook, each with its own line and its own markup color.
Cross-check against schedules and details
PASS 5Counts taken off the plan are reconciled against the door, window, finish, equipment and fixture schedules, and against the details the plan points at.
Pricing, if you ordered it
PASS 6Quantities-only work stops here. If you ordered a priced build-up, labor, material, equipment and burden go on in a second pass over the same measured lines, against the market the job gets built in.
See construction estimating servicesTwo people check it, and they are not looking for the same things
Every package gets a self-check by the estimator who built it, then an independent audit by a second estimator.
The self-check is arithmetic and completeness. The estimator who did the work walks their own conditions back against the sheets: is every area of the plan accounted for, does every line carry a unit, do the subtotals add up, is anything counted twice because it appears on two sheets.
Nobody can audit their own reading of a drawing, because the misreading and the check share a brain. So the second estimator starts from the drawings rather than from the workbook. They take the lines carrying the most money and re-derive them independently. Whatever fails the audit returns to the estimator who built the package, and the file does not leave the desk in that state.
What is in the workbook, and how one number traces back to a wall
Three files arrive by email. Here is what sits inside each of them, and the trace test that tells you in under a minute whether a package is auditable or merely confident.
The workbook
Editable Excel or CSV, unlocked, in our layout or in yours.
Quantities by division
THE NUMBERSOne tab per trade or one per division, depending on how you asked for it. Every line carries a description, a location reference, the unit, the quantity and the markup label it was measured against.
Assumptions, inclusions and exclusions
THE SCOPE RECORDWhat was counted, what was assumed and what was deliberately left out, each with the sheet or specification section behind it.
The marked-up sheets, and the trace
Tracing a total back to the drawing
THE TRACE TESTPick any total in the workbook. The line under it names a sheet and a markup label. Open that sheet, find the label, and you are looking at the geometry the number came from.
What you can do with the files
YOURSThe workbook is unlocked and the formulas are live. The markups are ordinary PDFs. Drop in your rates, resort by trade, paste into the bid form, or hand the sheets to a sub so they price the same count you did. Source takeoff files on request.
See a sample packageOpen a delivered package before you send anything
The workbook, the marked-up sheets and the scope record from a real job with the identifying detail stripped out.
Revisions and addenda, and what counts as new scope
Delivery is rarely the end of a bid.
What is included after delivery?
Anything that does not change what was measured. A figure you want rechecked, a line you disagree with, a reformat into your template, a walk through an assumption you dislike, a correction where we got something wrong.
What counts as new scope?
Anything that changes what was measured. A trade the quote never covered, a replacement drawing issue, a design change, or an addendum that moves conditions. Each of those returns to you as a revised quote in writing before any work begins, so you approve the extra or you decline it.
How fast does an addendum turn?
Faster than the original run, because only the affected conditions reopen. The addendum is read against the delivered package, the touched lines are listed back to you with the cost to update them, and once you say go the revised workbook and remarked sheets follow. Send it the day it drops.
Who owns what, settled before you send anything
Outsourcing the measuring, and the pricing if you order it, does not move the bid decision anywhere.
| Measuring the drawings | Owned end to end | Nothing to do until it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Production rates behind the labor | Stated in writing so you can argue | Yours to override on any line |
| Markup, overhead and profit | Never set here, never suggested | Set by you, after you have seen the quantities |
| Scope gaps found in the set | Found, written down, sent to you | Yours to decide which way they go |
| The number on the bid form | Never assembled into a submission | Written, signed and submitted by you alone |
Three or more jobs a month changes how this runs
A retainer swaps the per-job quote for a standing queue and priority position. Tell us your monthly bid count and it gets sized against that.
After the award, the same team can carry on
Winning the job is not where the work has to stop, and the same team can carry on from there.
A buy list for buyout
The measured quantities can become a buy list for buyout.
Material takeoff servicesChange order pricing
Change orders can be priced when the scope moves after the award.
Construction estimating servicesProject schedules
Once the contract is signed, the same team can build the project schedule.
Project schedulingSteel detailing
The same team can also detail the steel and produce the shop drawings.
Structural steel detailingWhat happens to your plans once they leave your office
You are about to email a full set to a company you have not met.
The questions people ask before their first upload
Starting out
The quote and the job
Limits
Send the set,
and read the number it comes back with
Name the trades, name the date the bid closes, and attach the drawings. An estimator reads it and sends back one number in writing with a delivery date on it. Approving that number is the only commitment anywhere on this page.