Master the essential skills required for professional construction estimating, whether it's for professional use, a hobby, or simply understanding how estimators function within your company. Learn the significance of reading plans, quantifying building components, understanding productivity, assessing risks, and utilizing computer skills within your estimation projects.
Key Insights
- One of the most crucial skills in construction estimating is being able to read and comprehend 2D drawings and envision the 3D structures they represent. This includes understanding the construction process and how different elements are built.
- Accuracy is paramount; an estimator is responsible for all quantities and pricing. Errors with scale can lead to inaccuracies in quantities and total costs, emphasizing the need for precise measurements and understanding of units of measure for various construction tasks and materials.
- Proficiency in computer skills, particularly within the Windows operating system and Excel or Google Spreadsheets, is essential. Estimators should be capable of creating, proving the accuracy of, and writing formulas for Excel or Google Spreadsheets. Furthermore, a grasp of the geometry associated with estimating calculations is vital.
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.
I want to quickly discuss some skills that are generally required for professional construction estimating. Even if you just want to estimate as a hobby or understand what estimators are doing at your company, these skills are essential for working on estimating projects. Required knowledge for estimating includes the ability to read plans and specifications.
Probably the most important thing in this class is to understand that when you're working with 2D drawings, you must have a general sense of the 3D image that it's creating by looking at multiple plans and sections and elevations. General knowledge of construction and how things are built is very important.
Measuring and quantifying building components using scaled drawing dimensions is critical. This is so important. We learned about this in blueprint reading.
The scale is vital to every project. If your scale is off, your quantities are off, and your total cost is off. It's important to know that ultimately the estimator is responsible for all quantities and all pricing for that estimate.
Knowledge of units of measure for the various construction tasks and materials. Understanding productivity. This is how long it takes to build something.
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This is where we mentioned earlier that you have to have a general sense of construction. The ability to assess difficulty factors and risks. Understand that all unit costs for the same task can vary tremendously if you're in a large open area or very small quarters.
Good computer skills for Windows operating system. Experience with Excel or Google Spreadsheets. Reading and writing formulas for Excel or Google Spreadsheets is essential.
Not only must you be able to create those, but you must be able to prove that they're accurate. That's part of the data validation that we'll talk about more in this class. Math and geometry associated with estimating calculations are very important.
You have to have a general sense of the geometry of a building and understand the length and width of a building, the volume of concrete inside of a footing, and so on.
