Deep dive into the intricate process of creating detailed levels for your project estimates, including the delicate balance of what constitutes too much information and what forms a suitable rolled-up unit cost. Unpack the complexities of fully detailed category costs from labor to equipment, material, and subcontractor pricing.
Key Insights
- Project estimates can be broken down into different detail levels, from single unit costs to fully detailed category costs including labor, equipment, material, and subcontractor pricing.
- While granular costs provide extensive detail, it is essential to roll these costs up to the next level for a less cluttered estimate, maintaining a balance between too much information and a suitable rolled-up unit cost.
- Providing single unit costs for each cost category and their total unit costs offers more material and valuable information that enhances the readability and comprehension of the estimate.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Let's talk about the detail levels that you can create from your estimate. We could have a single unit cost for a project, a single unit cost for individual elements, or we can divide the costs into cost categories, where they can become very granular individually. Keep in mind that if we get very granular with our costs, we can always roll those costs up to the next level to prevent the estimate from appearing too busy.
But understand that any rolled-up cost usually has several layers of granular detail inside of it. Our last option is fully detailed category costs that would also include crews and resources as they relate to labor rate tables, city cost indexes, productivity, and difficulty factors—this applies to labor alone. Equipment is similar, along with greater detail for material and subcontractor pricing as well.
Understand that we can get very granular with this if we decide to, but you have to find that sweet spot between what is too much information and what is a suitable rolled-up unit cost. Make sure that anyone else can read your estimate and understand it with the information provided, without including unnecessary details. So, what detail level do we want for our cost categories in construction estimating? This is the method we'll be working with in this class in the provided estimate in the example.
By showing more detail, by providing single unit costs for each of the cost categories, and then the total unit costs, we provide significantly more material and information that can be utilized by anyone else reading the estimate.