Page 15 - 2018 National Home Improvement

2018 National Home Improvement Estimator, All Rights Reserved Page 11

Job Survey (Scope of Work)
Of course, neither a good price book nor a computer estimating program will solve all of your estimating
problems. Computers seldom make mistakes in addition or multiplication. But nothing prevents you
from making expensive estimating mistakes on your own. By far the most common estimating mistake
will be omitting something essential to the job.

Get in the habit of completing an exhaustive job survey before beginning any estimate for home
improvement work. Some of your estimates on a job may be too high. Other estimates on a job may be
too low. With any luck, your over-estimates will roughly balance with your under-estimates, leaving the
job total about where it should be. But the estimated price for anything omitted from a job survey is
always zero. That's a 100 percent miss. It's hard to balance a complete miss with anything. A few of
those can create a financial disaster.

Material Costs in This Book
Material costs for each item are listed in the column headed Material. These are neither retail nor
wholesale prices. They are estimates of what most contractors who buy in moderate volume will pay
suppliers as of mid-2018. Discounts may be available for purchases in larger volumes.

Add Delivery Expense to the material cost for other than local delivery of reasonably large quantities.
Cost of delivery varies with the distance from source of supply, method of transportation, and quantity to
be delivered. But most material dealers absorb the delivery cost on local delivery (5 to 15 miles) of larger
quantities to good customers. Add the expense of job site delivery when it's a significant part of the
material cost.

Add Sales Tax when sales tax will be charged to the contractor buying the materials. In some states,
contractors have to collect sales tax based on the contract price. No matter what your state (or county)
requires, National Estimator can handle the task. Click Edit on the National Estimator menu bar. Then
click Sales Tax.

Waste and Coverage Loss is included in the installed material cost. The cost of many materials per
unit after installation is greater than the purchase price for the same unit because of waste, shrinkage or
coverage loss during installation. For example, about 120 square feet of nominal 1" x 4" square edge
boards will be needed to cover 100 square feet of floor or wall. There's no coverage loss with plywood
sheathing, but waste due to cutting and fitting will average about 6 percent.

Costs in the Material column of this book assume normal waste and coverage loss. Small and irregular
jobs may require a greater waste allowance. Materials priced without installation (with no labor cost)
don't include an allowance for waste and coverage except as noted.