How To Estimate Construction Costs?

Oct 1
16:34

2007

Tony Shipp

Tony Shipp

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The plan of any construction, after it has been conceived through drawings and specifications, begins with its cost estimation. The success of any con...

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The plan of any construction,How To Estimate Construction Costs? Articles after it has been conceived through drawings and specifications, begins with its cost estimation. The success of any construction venture depends on its accurate cost estimation. An effective estimate should include every aspect of the cost in the process of building the project. This may be complicating task but makes an important part of the building process.

Primarily, estimation begins with the collection of data about various building materials and their prices, labor costs and shipping and transporting costs. Apart from that, there are various other expenses like permits and insurances. Above all, the cost estimates also include the overhead costs and the margin of profit in the construction venture.

The collection and organization of the data of products and pricing is a time consuming task. It is also an error prone area of the process. It involves multiple calculations and separate measurements of various components of the building operation, such as the site preparation which is the beginning of any construction.

Now, the sequence of construction work varies according to the type of construction project in hand. It could be a simple house, a hotel or a hospital. It could also be a specialty construction, like a power project or a highway. All types of constructions and their different components require different sets of materials and different skilled laborers. Thus the estimation of construction costs differs accordingly.

Nonetheless, the overall similarity in any project is that the construction costs estimates find out the total cost of production and the margin of profit. What differs is the set of calculation that has to be done.

Technology has brought a lot of pace to the job of cost estimation. There is whole a range of cost estimating software that can perform either specific or multiple functions. There are software that offer you an accepted template for construction costing.

Downloading this template equips the excel program in your system to make simplified construction costs estimates. The format used in this particular program is familiar for most computer users and can be used by anyone. This program loads the excel spreadsheet with all the tool bars required for carrying out the cost estimations. It can be downloaded online at a price of $24.95.

The web offers estimating software for each component of the building that needs estimating. For instance, if you need to estimate the residential steel framing estimate of carpentry, you have TNE.

There are other software that are far more sophisticated and designed with 3D visual features connected to the database you design.

They can handle multiple set of projects and import data from all kinds of programs. They have specific sequence of organizing and synchronizing the data that has been prepared. They also come with the provision of merging one project into the other. Their process of estimating is fast and can also produce estimates after making vital changes in the project. If one needs to change the pattern of a living room of some building, the software will calculate the consequent changes in the materials, in the labor costs and also produce the desired estimate.