ABSTRACT
In the United States, the collection of construction quantities required for pricing an estimate is the unglamorous term “takeoff”. A more apt term is a “quantity survey”, which more appropriately defines studying plans in search of quantities. A full quantity survey of a building or renovation can require an enormous amount of data collecting. Accuracy is aided by standardized uses of arithmetic. There are takeoff rules of measuring, like “rectangles are easier to count than triangles”, and shortcuts that get the right answer in the least number of steps. The takeoff and estimate include descriptions of labor that are going to be missed in simply an accounting of material. Huge amounts of labor may not even appear on the plans, such as excavation for concrete, formwork, shoring and wall bracing, material handling and more. One must abide by a good set of data collecting rules to properly describe the work and get the quantities counted correctly.
